POLITICS-Beyond Balancing Acts

of mobilising savings and advancing credit. The banking bureaucracy has begun to desist from entertaining credit proposals from vast numbers of medium and small corporates who do not enjoy a high credit rating; instead, with the authorities' blessings, investment in government securities, placing of funds in bonds, debentures and shares of PSUs and prime-rated private sector companies and generally undertaking treasury operations have been preferred. The new policy package has failed to provide any clear signal to the banking system, either in terms of decisive policy measures or moral suasion, to change its attitude to speedy credit delivery.