Government has not written off any corporate loans: FM

The government has not written off even a single rupee of corporate loan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

The Minister was responding to a supplementary question by Congress member Deepender Singh Hooda, who said the government had written off around Rs 59,000 crore of corporate loans.

"The government has not written off even a single rupee of corporate loan... You should verify it before repeating it again and again," Jaitley said.

"Why are these NPAs (nonperforming assets) there? These are loans that were given by public sector banks before 2014... There are more NPAs in public sector banks than in private sector banks," he said.

The Minister said the NPAs grew because "adverse economic circumstances" came and the piling up of interests did not stop.

Jaitley also said that in the agricultural sector, Rs 2.92 lakh crore had been invested to boost the economy through crop insurances, road and housing projects and other such projects.

In his written reply, Jaitley said the Net Non-Performing Assets (NNPA) of the State Bank of India as on March 31 was 3.72 per cent of Total Advances.

There was no government department or undertaking in the top 25 NPAs of the bank as on March 31, he said.

Gross NPA of public sector banks on March 31 was Rs 6.41 crore, he added.

--IANS

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