Public and private sector banks have written off ₹80,893 crore worth of loans during the first half of the current financial year, the government informed Parliament on Tuesday.
“As per RBI data on global operations, public sector and private sector banks wrote off ₹80,893 crore [provisional data], during the current financial year 2019-20 [till September 30, 2019],” Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur informed the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question.
The Minister further said that gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of both public and private sector banks rose from ₹3,12,706 crore as on March 31, 2015 to ₹10,21,464 crore as of March 31, 2018. This has subsequently fallen by ₹80,790 crore to come to ₹9,40,673 crore as of September 30, 2019. State Bank of India wrote off the highest amount of loans (₹27,535.31 crore) during the current financial year till September, followed by Bank of Baroda (₹5,439.76 crore) and Axis Bank (₹5,426.14 crore).
Mr. Thakur clarified that the loans written off were not to the benefit of the borrowers. “As borrowers of written-off loans continue to be liable for repayment and the process of recovery of dues from the borrower in written-off loan accounts continues, write-off does not benefit the borrower,” he said in his written answer.
