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As many as 701 accounts with bad loans exceeding Rs 100 crore owed public sector banks (PSBs) Rs 1.63 lakh crore at the end of December, with State Bank of India accounting for the biggest chunk.
SBI had 85 such accounts with aggregate non-performing assets (NPAs) of Rs 23,726 crore, followed by Bank of India with 93 accounts with cumulative NPAs of Rs 21,398 crore. Bank of Baroda had 59 accounts with NPAs of Rs 13,657 crore, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.
In all, 701 accounts owed Rs 1,63,920 crore to 26 PSBs. In another reply, Sinha said six banks including private and foreign have a total of 9 accounts having NPAs of Rs 1,000 crore with outstanding loan of Rs 19,678 crore.
Private sector ICICI Bank has only two such accounts with outstanding loan of Rs 5,207 crore, while foreign lender Standard Chartered Bank has one account with NPAs of Rs 1,449 crore.
Among PSBs, SBI and IDBI Bank have two such accounts with loan outstanding of Rs 7,510 crore and Rs 2,802 crore.
Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India have one such account with NPA of Rs 1,647 crore and Rs 1,062 crore, respectively.
He further said gross NPAs of PSBs rose to Rs 3.61 lakh crore at the end of December 2015, while that of private lenders was at Rs 39,859 crore.
The main reasons for increase in NPAs of banks are sluggishness in the domestic growth in the recent past, slow recovery in the global economy and continuing uncertainty in the global markets leading to lower exports of various products such as textiles, leather, Sinha said.
While, external factors include ban in mining projects, delay in clearances affecting power, he said.
Besides, volatility in prices of raw material and shortage in availability of power have impacted the operation of textiles, iron and steel and aggressive lending by banks in past have led to rise in NPAs, he added.
