Firms Accounted For Rs 80,246 Crore Of Sticky Assets

Industrial houses accounted for non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 80,246.46 crore in the Indian banking sector, according to Reserve Bank of India statistics. Of the 12090 bad loan accounts of industrial houses, Gujarat had 784, worth Rs 4577.32 crore.

Only NPAs in excess of Rs 1 crore have been considered while compiling the data. In Gujarat, Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) has the maximum NPAs till March 31, 2001 at Rs 695.55 crore, followed by Bank of Baroda and Bank of India.

Bank of Baroda has NPAs worth Rs 645.29 crore while Bank of India has Rs 557.07 crore. Dena Bank has fourth with NPAs worth Rs 385.10 crore, followed by State Bank of India with Rs 339.53 crore.

According to the All India Bank Employees Association, two Ahmedabad-based firms -- the Maradia group and Core Health Care Ltd -- along with their subsidiaries had bad loans from eight and twelve different banks, respectively.

Though Business Standard repeatedly tried to contact Rasiklal Maradia, owner of Maradia Group, and Sushil Kumar Handa, promoter of Core, both were unavailable for comment.

Arvind Mills accounted for Rs 29.24 crore bad loans from BNP Paribas in two separate accounts -- Arvind Mills Ltd and Arvind Products Ltd. Arvind officials were also not available for comments on Thursday.

"While banks extend all co-operation to big industrial houses, the government does not help in recovering the NPAs from these defaulters. We are planning to take out processions to the corporate offices of all top defaulters," said Tarakeshwar Chakroborty, general secretary of the AIBEA, over the telephone from his Kolkata office.

"On November 27, we are taking out a rally to Parliament House seeking stern legal actions against these heavyweight defaulters," he added.

His counterpart in Gujarat, D G Gandhi, state secretary of AIBEA, said: "Taking advantage of some loopholes in the existing system, corporates like Maradia or Core are not showing interest in paying back loans from a number of banks. We strongly condemn such attitude and demand that the government empower us to seize the properties of these defaulters to recover the money."

Even private banks and FIs are not far behind their nationalised counterparts in terms of NPAs.

In Gujarat, according to RBI statistics, the Industrial Development Bank of India has NPAs worth Rs 279.32 crore. HDFC Bank, InduInd Bank are also not in a very healthy position in this aspect.

Some banks have even disbursed loans to corporates that were defaulters on earlier occasions. "Even after Core Health Care failed to pay back Rs 135.14 crore to IFCI, the company was lent Rs 44.23 crore by Dena Bank and Rs 44.23 crore by Bank of Baroda. Similar is the case with Maradia group," said Trivedi of AIBEA.