Public sector banks have written off around ₹91,000 crore in first 9 months of the current fiscal, according to data presented in the Rajya Sabha. Data showed that PSBs have just managed to recover little over ₹1 out of ₹5 in written off accounts during FY22. However, the pace of recovery has picked up from around 8 per cent in 2017-18 to little over 21 per cent in FY22.
Bank wise data
In a written answer, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave bank-wise details of written off amounts with State Bank of India on the top (₹17,356 crore) followed by Union Bank of India (₹16,497 crore) and Bank of Baroda (₹13,032 crore). Details about recovery for current fiscal have not been given.
Meanwhile, in a response to another question, data provided along with written answer by Minister of State for Finance, Bhagwat Karad, revealed that all the scheduled commercial banks (PSBs, private banks and foreign banks) wrote-off around ₹1.61-lakh crore worth of loan in FY18 while recovery from written off accounts was less than ₹13,000 crore or around 8 per cent of bad debts taken off from the book in that year. For next four fiscal, the percentage rose to 10.8, 12.8, 14.9 and 19.4 per cent, respectively.
During all these five years, total amount in written off loan accounts was over ₹10 lakh crore, while recovery was over ₹1.3-lakh crore. This means net written off amount was around ₹8.7-lakh crore.
A big amount written off by PSBs.It means there’s a big fault in the first place – sanction of loans. This is followed by a big gap in the process of recovery. Government should further share the details of Bankwise breakup of the sanctioning authority of the written off as also the detail of punishment given to erring officials.