Banks wrote off Rs 9.91 lakh crore of debt in the past 5 years

10 Aug 2022 , 09:08 AM

According to a recent Parliament reply, scheduled commercial banks have written off debts of around Rs10 lakh crore over the past five fiscal years. The write-off amount decreased from Rs2,02,781 crore in 2020—21 to Rs 1,57,096 crore in 2021—22, according to the Finance Ministry's response.

During 2019—20, the write-off was approximately Rs2,34,170 crore, down from Rs2,36,265 crore in 2018—19, the highest amount in five years, according to Bhagwat K. Karad, Minister of State for Finance, in his written response to the Rajya Sabha. A total of Rs1,61,328 crore was written off by banks in 2017—18.

In all, bank loans of Rs9,91,640 crore were written off during the course of the previous five years, from 2017—18 to 2021—22. Additionally, he stated that "scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) and all Indian financial institutions provide to the RBI under its Central Repository of Information on Large Credits database specific credit information of all borrowers having aggregate credit exposure of Rs 5 crore and above.

According to the statistics, 2,700 willful defaulters were recorded in 2021—2022 after 2,840 were reported during 2020—21. At the end of March 2019, there were 2,207 willful defaulters, and that number increased to 2,469 in 2019—20.

The top five willful defaulters on the list were Gitanjali Gems, Era Infra Engineering, Concast Steel and Power, REI Agro Ltd, and ABG Shipyard Ltd. Similar to Mehul Choksi's firm, Gitanjali Gems, Era Infra Engineering owes banks a staggering Rs 7,110 crore, while Concast Steel and Power Ltd owe Rs4,107 crore.