3 Bad A/Cs Tot Up Rs 1210 Crore Npas For Sbi

Three bad accounts have inflected a Rs 1,209.44 crore non performing asset (NPA) burden on the State Bank of India (SBI) till March 2001. In addition, 804 firms availing loans above Rs 1 crore from the largest commercial bank have contributed to net NPA of 6.03 per cent, according to data available on NPAs from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In this lot, some 80-odd firms availed of loans, all above Rs 10 crore each, totalling Rs 1,710.68 crore till March 2001. The entire amount of the loan disbursed by the bank to these 80 enterprises has turned bad. The percentage of bad loans is disproportionately high, as the total volume of loans of above Rs 10 crore each stands at Rs 2,920.12 crore in the last fiscal. In addition, NPAs arising from loans above Rs 1 crore each in size stands at Rs 2,108 crore.

 

On the positive side, SBI went in for one-time settlement of loans totalling Rs 718 crore in respect of 1.95 lakh accounts with NPAs up to Rs 5 crore, with a cash recovery of Rs 384 crore.

The single-largest sticky asset that will probably never be recovered is on account of Harshad S Mehta at Rs 812 crore. This is being carried over by the bank from the time it was created. Other two large NPAs are Alpine Industries Ltd at Rs 163 crore and Hindustan Photofilms Manufacturing Co Ltd at Rs 233.72 crore.

Other large NPA accounts are Siris Ltd at Rs 81.07 crore, CRB Capital Markets at Rs 61 crore, Shah Construction at Rs 44.59 crore and Laxmi Vishnu Textile Mill at Rs 44.14 crore. Responding to the situation and in a bid to recover cash from companies, SBI has actively participated in the rehabilitation of units having potential for turnaround, also approved by the Board for Industrial Financial and Reconstruction (BIFR).

BIFR identified 512 units, including 59 PSUs financed by the bank as sick. Out of these, BIFR approved rehabilitation package for 96 units, involving Rs 763 crore. Of these, 58 packages involving Rs 472 crore were implemented.

Owing to these steps, net NPA at the bank has improved marginally. SBI's net NPA was 6.41 per cent till March 2000, which improved to 6.03 per cent in March 2001. The absolute figure however stands at Rs 6856.26 crore against Rs 6283 crore in the previous fiscal.