Tag: RTI

There has been discussion around “write-off” of over Rs 8 lakh crore during the last seven years, the government
believes that these are technical in nature and are actually meant to bring about transparency in bank balance sheets.

The steps taken by the government over the last few years — from enacting Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code and strengthening other laws to administrative measures — have helped banks recover around Rs 5.5 lakh crore of bad debt including Rs 99,996 from accounts that had been technically written off. Banks have used multiple sources — accruals, fundraising from the market and capital infusion by the government — to comply with the regulatory requirements.

Internal accruals and market raising account for as much as 70% of the provisioning done during the last few years.

The write-offs

Public sector banks have written off a massive Rs 8 lakh crore worth of loans since 2014, more than double the capital of Rs 3.37 lakh crore infused by the government in them.

The highest infusion was in fiscal 2019 when Rs 1.06 lakh crore were infused while in 2020-21, the government put in Rs 14,500 crore into four public sector banks.

The maximum write-offs were in fiscal 2019 at Rs 1.83 lakh crore, following by FY20 at Rs 1.75 lakh crore.

Reduction in non-performing assets due to write-offs for public sector banks stood at Rs 1,31,894 crore during fiscal 2020-21.

In FY2019-20, the number stood at Rs 1,75,877 crore, the RBI said

In the last seven years, bank credit to the industrial sector dropped to 28.9% in 2021 as compared to 42.7% in 2014. Credit to the retail sector grew from 16.2% to 26.3% in the last seven years.

The comparison

The loans write-off between 2015 and 2019 were more than three times compared to the figures of bad loans written off during the previous Congress-led UPA regime from 2004-2014, as per an RTI revelation.

During the UPA’s 10-year rule, around Rs2,20,328 crore was written off by various banks, and this figure shot up to Rs 7,94,354 crore during the NDA regime from 2015-2019, resulting in a corresponding reduction in the banks’ NPAs.

The RTI reply figures around two-dozen public sector banks (PSBs), some three-dozen in the private sector, nine scheduled commercial banks, a four-dozen foreign banks, and several in each category not written off any loans.

Of the loan write-offs in the UPA decade (2004-2014), the PSBs accounted for approximately Rs 1,58,994 crore, while the private banks’ amounts were Rs41,391 crore and for foreign banks it was Rs 19,945 crore, with no write-offs by Scheduled Banks.

Later, in the NDA regime (2015-2019), the PSBs accounted for a stupendous Rs 6,24,370 crore loan write-off, with the private banks writing off Rs 1,51,989 crore and the foreign banks shared the remaining 17,995 crore, (Total—Rs7,94,354 crore), besides an additional write-off by scheduled banks totalling Rs 1,295 crore (Total – Rs 7,95,649 crore).