Indian financial institutions, and Public Sector Banks in particular, have been plagued by a series of bad loans. There has been a 16 percent rise in the number of wilful defaulters over a period of one year; amounting to a total of 8,167 such defaulters by the end of March 2016. PTI reports Public Sector Banks alone are owed Rs 76,685 crores, which
corresponds to 16 percent rise in wilful defaulters owing over Rs 25 Lakhs each to 8,167 from the original 7,031 at the end of March 2015. Simultaneously, dues to the bank have increased to 28.5 per cent to Rs 76,685 crore in 2015-16 from the earlier Rs 59,656 crore.
While banks have filed 1,724 FIRs with a total outstanding amount of Rs 21,509 crore in 2015-16 to recover loans from defaulters; the conviction rate was just 1.14 per cent.
In the previous fiscal year, the recovery efforts of banks brought Rs.3,498 crores back to them.
In a written reply, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar told the Lok Sabha that there were 129 wilful defaulters who borrowed loans in excess of Rs 100 crore amounting to Rs 28,525 crore from PSBs as on June 30, 2016.
“Before a loan account turns NPA, banks are required to identify stress in the account under three sub-categories of Special Mention Account (SMA),” he pointed out. “Banks are also required to report credit information on borrowers having aggregate exposure of more than Rs 5 crore to Central Repository of Information of Large Credits (CRILC), he added.
In another written reply, the Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said that banks have seized property worth Rs 64,519 crore during 2015-16 as against Rs 54,060 crore in the previous fiscal. These properties were seized by taking account of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act.
