SBI's Rs 11,700 crore locked as NPAs with 1164 wilful defaulters

In a shock to the authorities, SBI’s loans worth Rs 11,700 crore have been locked up as NPAs because of 1,164 defaulters having willfully decided not to repay.

These 1,164 cases of wilful default have been identified, and the total outstanding loan amount comes out to be Rs 11,705 crore, said the data collated by the Finance Ministry.

The bank itself has declared Kingfisher Airlines and its guarantors UB Holdings and Vijay Mallya as wilful defaulters in November, which owes it Rs 1,600 crore.

A total of 13 FIRs have been lodged against wilful defaulters with loans of Rs 13.10 crore.

At the end of the December quarter, the gross NPAs of SBI were calculated to Rs 72,791.73 crore, while for the same period in last fiscal, the amount was Rs 61,991.45 crore.

It has led to a deep fall in the profitability of the bank, given that the consolidated profit sank 67% to Rs 1,259.49 crore for the quarter.
SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya had said that bad loans are expected to further increase in the coming quarter, which may hit its profitability even more.

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