As we enter 2019, the Indian banking industry is facing a huge distress debt crisis. It has become apparent that fresh capital infusions are needed to deal with the crisis in order to survive. The year 2019 was the year of reckoning for Indian banks, as they were struggling with a huge distress debt crisis. As a result of aggressive lending to the Infrastructure Sector in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008-2010 to prop up the Indian economy, as well as fraud and dial perversion of funds, the Indian Banking Sector ended up with a substantial amount of deteriorating debt due to a number of other factors, including fraud and diversion of funds.
The Government of India, in order to keep a close eye on fraudulent activities and to prevent the diversion of funds, has introduced the ASM (Agency for Specialized Monitoring) mechanism. With the Agency for Specialized Monitoring(ASM), banks will be required to appoint specialized monitoring agencies to closely monitor the activities of debtors (borrowers), including purchases/invoices, actual production versus projections, transactions/payments of high value based on beneficiaries and purposes, and cash flow in/outflow.