Loans worth Rs 10, 09,511 crore written off in last five financial years: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Tags: Economy/Finance

According to the Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sithraman, Scheduled commercial banks have written off loans amounting to Rs 10, 09,511 crore in the last five financial years and the process of recovery of dues from the borrowers continues.  Speaking in the Lok Sabha on 19 December 2022 she said that the borrowers of written-off loans continue to be liable for repayment and the process of recovery of dues from the borrower in written-off loan accounts continues. 

She said that public sector banks could recover only Rs 1,03045 crore from written off loans from the last five financial years, while the  aggregate recovery in the last five years amounts to Rs. 4,80,111 crore.

 What is Loan Write Off?

A loan is written off by a bank where it feels that there is no chance of recovery of loans. They make 100% provisioning for the loan amount and remove the loan from their balance sheets.

According to the Reserve Bank of India , if a loan which has remained Non-Performing Assets (NPA)  for the last 4 years and banks has made 100% provisioning for it ,then the bank can remove the loans from its balance sheets via write off.

Bank wise loan off write off 

In the last five financial years, State Bank of India (SBI) wrote off Rs 2 lakh crore. Punjab National Bank wrote off Rs 67,214 crore loans, followed by IDBI Bank which wrote off Rs 45650 crores of loans. Among private sector banks, ICICI Bank wrote off Rs 50,514 crores of loans while HDFC Bank wrote off Rs 34782 crore loans.