Of the Rs 92,376 crore that wilful defaulters owed banks in 2016-17, around 40% was owed to the State Bank of India and the Punjab National Bank. Till March 31, 2017, 1,762 wilful defaulters owed Rs 25,104 crore, or 27% of the total bad loans, to SBI and 1,120 owed Rs 12,278 crore to PNB.
Bad loans in the 2016-17 financial year rose 20.4% from Rs 76,685 the previous year. The same year, public sector banks wrote off a record Rs 81,683 crore in bad loans.
This was despite the Finance Ministry directing lenders to take measures against non-performing assets, including changing loan recovery laws and empowering the Reserve Bank of India to rapidly start insolvency processes against stressed assets.
The RBI had asked banks to begin bankruptcy proceedings against 12 big loan defaulters, who account for more than a quarter of the Rs 9 lakh crore of the country’s bad loans. The RBI has also allowed banks to publicly name and shame wilful defaulters.
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