This is crazy. Public Sector Banks just wrote-off a whopping Rs 1.14 lakh cr in bad debt accumulated over 3 years

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Public Sector Banks wrote off more than Rs 1.14 lakh crore debt in the past three financial years, including compromise settlements.

This was more than the amount written off in the previous nine financial years.

"The public sector banks have written off (including compromise settlements) Rs 1,14,181 crore of debt during financial years 2013, 2014 and 2015. This amount is higher than written off amount by PSBs during the previous nine financial years from 2004 to 2012," said Jaitley in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Even the non-performing asset ( NPA) accounts were written-off for clearing the balance sheet and enhancing profitability after full provisions have been made within the framework of RBI guidelines and Board approved loan recovery policy of the concerned bank.

"It is resorted to after exhausting various avenues of recovery. However, in case of technical write-off, the recovery efforts continue as accounts remain the books of branches," Jaitley added.

The Gross NPAs of PSBs have moved from Rs 1,17,262 crore as at end March 2012 to Rs 2,78,468 crore at end March 2015.

Banks are required to report top 50 NPAs of each bank under off-site monitoring system.