Stressing that government has accorded highest priority to

NPA resolution, Subramanian said: "There is a sense that it's costing us a lot. Private investment growth has been negative.

So we need to bring that back to some healthy level that was before all this happened."

RBI has over the past few years introduced a number of mechanisms to deal with the stressed asset problem, he said.

Initially, the schemes focused on rescheduling amortisations to give firms more time to repay. But as it became apparent that the financial position of the stressed firms was deteriorating, the RBI deployed mechanisms to deal with solvency issues, as well.

Slamming rating agencies for not upgrading India's sovereign rating, he said government does whatever is in the best interest of the country and not exclusively from rating perspective.

"Governments have to act based on their assessment of what is good policy, best policy for them. Government cannot based their policies exclusively on what rating agencies are going to say. This is kind of things that have got many countries into trouble," he said.

"I think we have to assess what is best for us. I am not saying we should ignore them. They are one small and modest piece in the puzzle," he added.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)