Top 50 defaulters of PSBs had exposure of Rs 1.21 lakh crore

Jayant Sinha said the amount owed by wilful defaulters more than doubled to Rs 66,190 crore from Rs 27,749 crore

The top 50 defaulters of public sector banks had an exposure of Rs 1.21 lakh crore as on December 2015.

Giving this information in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said the number of wilful defaulters of PSBs rose from 5,554 to 7,686 in three years to December 2015 while the amount involved more than doubled to Rs 66,190 crore from Rs 27,749 crore.

"The total exposure of top 50 defaulters of PSBs as on December 2015 was Rs 1,21,832 crore," he said in a written reply in the Upper House.

In another reply, Sinha said there were 1,365 borrower accounts having funded outstanding loans of Rs 500 crore and above at the end of December 2015.

He further said government has taken specific measures to address issues in sectors such as infrastructure, steel and textiles, where incidence of non-performing assets is high.

To another question, Sinha said Union Bank has informed that its Chitbaragaon branch has sanctioned KCC loan to certain borrowers as per bank's norm and completed required formalities.

"Branch has obtained No Dues Certificate from the earlier bankers i.e SBI before disbursement of loan and taken No Encumbrance Certificate from the Panel Advocate to avoid multiple financing," Sinha said.

He was asked why the Union Bank branch had extended loans against five accounts before expiration of five years in 2014 to "fraudsters" against whom "multiple cases of banking frauds" had been registered in 2013 by SBI and Purvanchal Bank.

"The SBI had not mentioned anything abut fraud in their NOC. The present status of these accounts is standard," Sinha added.