PSU Banks recover Rs.2.33 lakh cr worth of bad loans during 4 years

New Delhi:Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla informed Parliament that Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have recovered  2.33 lakh crore rupees worth of bad loans during the four years from financial year 2014-15 to fiscal 2017-18.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha yesterday, Mr Shukla informed that as per RBI data on global operations for PSBs, during the financial years 2014-15 to 2017-18, PSBs recovered  2,33,339 crore rupees, of which 32,693 crores were from written-off accounts.

He said, write-offs of non-performing assets is a regular exercise of the banks to clean up their balance sheet, tax benefit and capital optimisation.

During 2014-15 to 2017-18, the PSBs witnessed reduction in their NPAs due to write-offs to the tune of 3,16,515 crore rupees. The Minister also said that aggressive lending practices, wilful default/loan defaults as well as corruption in some cases and economic slowdown were the primary reasons for spurt in stressed



assets. 

Country's largest lender SBI, stood on a gross bad loans of  2.02 lakh crore rupees as on September 30, 2018, showed the data furnished by the Minister which was sourced from the Reserve Bank.

Among the rest of the 20 PSBs, Punjab National Bank had grossed NPAs to the tune of  80,993 crore rupees by end of second quarter of the current fiscal, IDBI Bank  50,690 crore rupees, Bank of India  50,338 crore rupees, Union Bank of India  48,575 crores.

Bank of Baroda also had NPAs to the tune of  46,454 crores, Canara Bank 41,907 crores, Central Bank of India 37,411 crores, Indian Overseas Bank  35,607 crores and UCO Bank  28,822 crores.

In reply to a query on gross advances done, Mr Shukla said aggregate gross advances of PSBs increased from 16.98 lakh crores as at end-March 2008 to  45.91 lakh crores by the end of March 2014.