SBI reportedly writes off bad loans of Rs 7,016 cr; Cong rakes up issue in Parliament

The clean-up drive saw the bank forgoing almost Rs 1,201 crore in dues owed by Vijay Mallya's defunct Kingfisher Airlines

The State Bank of India has cleaned up non-performing assets worth Rs 7,016 crore from its books by writing off loans given to 63 wilful defaulters, Daily News & Analysis reported on Wednesday.  Of the 63 accounts, 31 have been partially written off and six shown as NPAs.

The clean-up drive saw the bank forgoing almost Rs 1,201 crore in dues to Vijay Mallya’s defunct Kingfisher Airlines, which is at the top of the list of wilful defaulters. In other words, loans given to Kinfsiher Airlines will no longer be shown in the bank’s balance sheet, though the airline has outstanding dues of almost Rs 1,201 crore. Some of the other prominent defaulters who feature in the write-off list are KS Oil (Rs 596 crore), Surya Pharmaceuticals (Rs 526 crore), GET Power (Rs 400 crore) and SAI Info System (Rs 376 crore).

The Congress party immediately reacted to the article and linked it to the government's demonetisation drive. "As Modiji's blue-eyed boy Mallya gets a Rs 1,200-cr write-off, fighting black money is political hypocrisy at its worst," said Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Even Congress leader Anand Sharma expressed apprehensions that the money received from people migth be used to recapitalise the banks and wipe out Rs 6 lakh crore of non-performing assets of big industrialists.

"The Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) are to the tune of Rs 6 lakh crore. Do they want to utilise the money deposited by people in banks to wipe out the NPAs (on account) of industrialists who have played fraud on the country?" party spokesman Kapil Sibal said at a briefing by the All-India Congress Committee.

He claimed that the Reserve Bank of India RBI would transfer the money to the government, which would recapitalise banks and clear their balance sheets, and the "whole thing has nothing to do with black money; it is a compromise on black money and with NPAs".

Even Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has called demonetisation the biggest scam. 

"This is what we feared. The hard-earned money of people will be put into banks to write off the loans of crorepatis. They have already started doing it," he said on Twitter."

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