PSBs made Rs 3.79-trn provisioning for bad loans from Mar 2014-Jun 2017

Public sector banks made an upfront provision of Rs 3.79 trillion between March 2014 and June 2017 towards stressed loans, which was nearly twice the provisions made in the preceding 10 years, the government said today.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said due to the Asset Quality Review and transparent recognition of restructured loans as non-performing assets, the public sector banks' (PSBs) gross NPAs increased by over Rs 4.54 trillion between March 2015 and June 2017.

"PSBs accordingly made up-front provision for expected loss on such stressed loans, of a total amount of Rs 3,79 trillion between March 2014 and June 2017, which was nearly twice the provision of Rs 1.96 trillion made in the preceding 10 years," he said.

"As per RBI guidelines and policy approved by bank boards, non-performing loans, including... those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years are removed from the balance sheet of the bank concerned by way of write-off," he added.

"Thus, the amount written off during the financial year 2017-18 is substantially on account of such stressed accounts of earlier years, which have been fully provisioned following the Asset Quality Review," the minister said.

As per RBI data on global operations for PSBs, the aggregate written off amount in the first half of 2017-18 was Rs 536 billion.

Gross NPAs of PSBs, as on March, 2015, stood at Rs 2.67 trillion and increased to Rs 6.89 trillion as on June, 2017.