The Rajya Sabha has taken up discussion on The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 in the post-lunch period. Moving the bill for consideration and passage, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the banking sector is suffering from serious problem of Non-Performing Assets (NPA). <br/><br/>He said Steel, Infrastructure, Power and Textile sectors contributed to increase in the NPA. He said, the problem could not be addressed despite several steps taken by the government. <br/><br/>The Finance Minister said the government resorted to ordinance route in view of mounting debts and diminishing capacity of banks to extend loans to small lenders. The bill provides for direction by RBI to banks to address the issue of stressed assets.