New Delhi: Top 50 wilful defaulters collectively owed a whopping sum of Rs 92,570 crore to Indian banks as of March 31, 2022.
In a written response, Bhagwat Karad, the Minister of State for Finance, told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that Gitanjali Gems, owned by fugitive diamond merchant Mehul Choksi alone defaulted on loans to the tune of Rs 7,848 crore.
The next on this list of major loan defaulters were Era Infra (Rs 5879 crore) and Reigo Agro (Rs 4803 crore), the minister said citing data from the Reserve Bank of India.
A wilful defaulter is a financial term used for borrowers who have the means to pay the loan back but don’t. These borrowers are debarred from any facility of banks or other financial institutions.
Companies like Concast Steel and Power (Rs 4,596 crore), ABG Shipyard (Rs 3,708 crore), Frost International Rs 3,311 crore), Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery (Rs 2,931 crore), Rotomac Global (Rs 2,893 crore), Coastal Projects (Rs 2,311 crore) and Zoom Developers (Rs 2,147 crore) are on the list.
The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of state-owned banks had dropped by over Rs 3 lakh crore after peaking at Rs 8.9 lakh crore.
After an Asset Quality Review by the RBI, the gross NPAs have come down Rs 5.41 lakh crore.
In the meanwhile, the banks wrote off Rs 10.1 lakh crore loans. India’s largest public sector bank State Bank of India, topped this list with Rs 2 lakh crore of write-offs, followed by Punjab National Bank (PNB) with Rs 67,214 crore.
Among private lenders, ICICI Bank wrote off the highest Rs 50,514 crore of loans, followed by HDFC at Rs 34,782 crore.
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