Banks write off loans worth ₹11.17 lakh crore in last six years

“The non-performing assets are removed from the balance sheet of the bank concerned by way of write-off,” Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in a written reply.

“Banks have written off ₹11.17 lakh crore bad loans from their books in the last six years till financial year 2021-22,” Parliament was informed on December 20.

The non-performing assets (NPAs), including those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years, are removed from the balance sheet of the bank concerned by way of write-off, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in a written reply.

Banks write off NPAs as part of their regular exercise to clean up their balance sheet, avail tax benefit and optimise capital, he said, adding, the write-off is carried out by the banks in accordance with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines and policy approved by their boards.

"As per RBI data, public sector banks (PSBs) and scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) wrote off an aggregate amount of ₹8,16,421 crore and ₹11,17,883 crore respectively during the last six financial years," he said.

“With regard to the list, including names of write-offs/defaulters who have defaulted more than ₹1 crore to the public sector banks, RBI has informed that borrower-wise information on written off loan accounts is not maintained by it,” he said.

In a reply to another question, Mr. Karad said, the RBI has informed that the total number of wilful defaulters each having outstanding loan of ₹25 lakh and above in public sector banks was 8,045 as on June 30, 2017 and 12,439 as on June 30, 2022; whereas in private sector bank, it was 1,616 as on June 30, 2017 and 2,447 as on June 30, 2022.