Banking sector wrote off Rs 14.56 lakh cr NPAs in 9 yrs

New Delhi: Banks have written off bad loans worth Rs14.56 lakh crore in the last nine financial years starting 2014-15, Parliament was informed on Monday.Out of the total Rs14,56,226 crore, written off loans of large industries and services stood at Rs7,40,968 crore. Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) have recovered an aggregate amount of Rs2,04,668 crore in written-off loans, including corporate loans, since April, 2014 and up to March 2023, Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

Loans written-off during the financial year, net of recovery in written-off loans during the financial year (net write-off) in public-sector banks (PSBs) was Rs1.18 lakh crore in the financial year (FY) 2017-18, which has declined to 0.91 lakh crore in FY 2021-22 and to Rs0.84 lakh crore (RBI provisional data) in FY2022-23, he said in another reply.

Net write-off loans by privatesector banks stood at Rs73,803 crore (RBI provisional data) in FY 2022-23, he said. Net write-off as percentage of opening gross loans and advances in private sector banks was 1.25 per cent and 1.57 per cent in FY 2017-18 and FY 2022-23 respectively, and it was 2 per cent and 1.12 per cent for PSBs during the same period.

Comprehensive steps have been taken by the government and RBI to recover and to bring down NPAs, enabled by which, gross NPAs of PSBs have declined to Rs4.28 lakh crore as on March 31, 2023, from Rs8.96 lakh crore as on March 31, 2018, he said.

Talking about various steps taken by the government, he said, the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (SRFAESIA) has been amended to make it more effective. The pecuniary jurisdiction of debt recovery tribunals (DRTs) was increased from Rs10 lakh to Rs20 lakh to enable the DRTs to focus on high-value cases, resulting in higher recovery for the banks and financial institutions, the minister said.

In addition, he said, National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) has been set up as an asset reconstruction company with an aim to resolve stressed assets above Rs500 crore each.