PSBs failing to recover bad loans, UCO Bank tops chart; check full list

In a major headache for Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in the country, the recovery rate of non performing assets (NPA), which were written off, has been declining. It has been learnt that 90 per cent of bad loans could not be recovered during 2014-15 to 2017-18, according to the Reserve Bank of India report. The worst performer is the UCO Bank, which had written off Rs 6,087 crore in the last four fiscals, failed to recover even a single rupee.

Other state-owned banks like Indian Overseas Bank had written off Rs 10,470 crore of NPA and managed to recover Rs 10 crore. Allahabad Bank has so far recovered just Rs 257 crore out of a total of Rs 9,533 crore of bad loans. The IDBI Bank has recovered a meagre Rs 479 crore out of a total of Rs 16,568 crore worth of NPAs written-off. The central government is planning to privatise the IDBI bank.

Punjab National Bank, which is in the news over diamond czar Nirav Modi case, had written off Rs 27,814 crore but managed recover Rs 6,270 crore with a relatively better percentage of 22.54. State Bank of India had written off Rs 1,02, 587 crore of bad loans. It had recovered Rs 10, 396 crore.

The report shows that in the last four fiscal years — 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 till December 31 — all 21 public sector banks in aggregate could recover only Rs 29,343 crore out of Rs 2.72 lakh crore of bad loans that were written off by the PSBs, a recovery rate of 10.77 per cent.

The growing NPA and increasing amount of write-offs generally put pressure on the exchequer to keep infusing capital in the banks to keep them afloat. Earlier in January, the central government had infused the lion’s share of capital of Rs 52,311 crore to 11 weak banks to maintain their minimum regulatory capital requirement. At the same time the Centre had given Rs 35,828 crore to nine strong banks.

Source: FE