Explain the bad debt mess: Govt pulls up bankers for NPA woes

The economic slowdown had started much before 2013 but banks continued to pour money into sick firms

The bad debt woes of public sector banks (PSBs) are not limited to gloomy numbers on books now. PSBs have started facing the music as the government is summoning them to explain why the mess occurred in the first place.

The jury is out on who is responsible for the current non-performing asset (NPA) pile up, which stood at over Rs 6 lakh crore by the end of December 2016. Further, estimates suggest that the total stressed assets, put in various baskets of technicalities, is at least 12.5 per cent of the total loans, or about Rs 9.5 lakh crore