Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who has replaced Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as the most articulate and persuasive spokesman of the government as reported first by Indianmandarins, has put the entire leadership of the UPA-2 in the dock on the issue of bank NPAs. On Thursday, December 14, he said "in March 2008, total lending of banks was Rs 18.16 lakh crore; this grew to Rs 52.15 lakh crore in March 2014. This reflects indiscriminate corporate lending during the Congress-led UPA regime." Goyal said this at a hurriedly convened presser to counter Congress' allegation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had used an industry function on Wednesday, December 13, to attack the Opposition on the eve of elections. He added, "it was unfortunate that earlier NPA accounts were not shown, ever-greening was done and NPAs were hidden by restructuring mechanisms such as corporate debt restructuring." "In March 2014, 36 percent of stressed assets were identified as NPAs; in June 2017, this jumped to 82 percent," he pointed out. Goyal said the identification of NPAs and clean-up of the banking system have been going on since the Modi administration took charge in May 2014. He added, "NPAs are a legacy issue that is being recognized only recently as per Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel." The railway minister said for the first time ever, the government was working to ensure transparent proceedings against defaulters. "In June 2017, the RBI had identified 12 of the biggest loan defaulters. Their collective borrowings amounted to Rs 1.75 lakh crore or one-fourth of total NPAs. Legal processes have been initiated and the cases have been referred to the National Company Law Tribunal," he added.