SME Times News Bureau | 09 Mar, 2016
Non-performing assets (NPAs), or bad loans, of public sector
banks (PSBs) have increased by close to Rs.1 lakh crore in the first nine
months of the current fiscal, parliament was informed on Tuesday.
"The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the PSBs increased from 5.43
percent as on March 2015 to 7.30 percent as on December 2015," Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
Gross NPAs of state-run banks increased from Rs.2,67,065 lakh crore in March
2015 to Rs.3,61,731 lakh crore in December 2015, he said, making for an
increase of Rs.94,666 crore over the nine months of the current fiscal.
In reply to another question, Jaitley listed specific measures to address the
issue of NPAs.
He said the government has approved establishment of six new Debt Recovery
Tribunals, to speed up recovery of bad loans of the banking sector, in addition
to the existing 33.
The Reserve Bank of India has also taken steps, including formation of a Joint
Lenders' Forum (JLF) for revitalising stressed assets in the system, flexible
structuring for long term project loans to infrastructure and core industries
and Strategic Debt Restructuring (SDR) scheme, Jaitley added.