Punjab National Bank
(PNB) has declared a list of about 900 wilful defaulters including Winsome Diamonds
& Jewellery, Zoom Developers and Nafed, which owe close to Rs 11,000 crores
to the lender.
The bank recently
declared beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines and its guarantors UB Holdings and
Vijay Mallya as wilful defaulters. Kingfisher Airlines owes Rs 1,500 crore to
PNB.
The bank has declared
904 entities as wilful defaulters with outstanding loan of Rs 10,869.71 crore
at the end of December 2015.
As per the list put
out by PNB, some of the prominent defaulters include Winsome Diamonds &
Jewellery which owes Rs 900.37 crore, followed by Forever Precious Jewellery
& Diamonds Rs 747.98 crore, Zoom Developers Rs 410.18 crore, Nafed Rs
224.26 crore and S Kumar Nationwide Rs 146.82 crore.
As part of its
balance sheet cleanup exercise, PNB plans to sell up to Rs 3,000 crore worth of bad
loans to asset reconstruction companies (ARC's) in the ongoing 4th quarter of
the current fiscal.
“PNB was one bank
which was away from this (ARC's) market and did not tap this market in the last
six years,” PNB Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian had told PTI.
Besides, the bank is
organising special camps for recovery at various places, she said.
The bank is also
looking at one-time settlement proposals and other measures to reduce bad loans.
For the third quarter
ended December 31, 2015-16, PNB’s asset quality deteriorated and gross non-performing
assets (NPA's) rose to 8.47 per cent of the gross advances as against 5.97 per
cent in the same quarter a year ago.
Likewise, net NPAs
rose to 5.86 per cent of the advances as of December quarter of 201516, from
3.82 per cent in the year ago period.
In absolute terms,
the gross NPA's increased to Rs 34,338.22 crore as of December quarter, from Rs
22,211.43 crore.
Net NPAs were at Rs
22,983.40 crore during the quarter, up from Rs 13,787.76 crore.
As a result, the bank’s
provision against bad loans increased sharply to Rs 2,867 crore during the
quarter as compared to Rs 1,976 crore in the same period, a year ago.
Those who have the
capacity must return their bank loans in the larger interest of the country,
Ananthasubramanian had said recently.
“Wilful defaulters
also block your (banks as well as general public) access to finance,” she had
said.
(Source Financial
Express, PTI)
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