Top 50 defaulters owe ₹92,570 crore to banks, government tells Parliament | Popgen Tech

India’s top 50 voluntary defaulters owed ₹92,570 crore to the country’s banks as of March 31, 2022, the government informed Parliament.

Citing RBI data, the government said fugitive diamond merchant Mehul Choksi’s Gitanjali Gems Limited topped the list as it defaulted on loans worth ₹ 7,848 crore.

Bhagwat Karad, the minister of state for finance, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, said that Era Infra (₹5879 crore) and Reigo Agro (₹4803 crore) were second and third respectively in -list of the top 50 voluntary defaulters.

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A voluntary default is a financial term used for borrowers who have the means to repay the loan but do not. These borrowers are excluded from any facility of banks or other financial institutions.

Other companies in the list include Concast Steel and Power (₹ 4,596 crore), ABG Shipyard (₹ 3,708 crore), Frost International ₹ 3,311 crore), Winsome Diamonds and Jewelery ₹ 2,931 crore), Rotomac Global (₹ 2,893 crore), Coastal Projects ₹ 2,311 crore) and Zoom Developers (₹ 2,147 crore).

Willful default occurs when a defaulting borrower does not honor an obligation, despite having the ability to pay, or siphons off funds and disposes of assets without the bank’s knowledge, according to RBI.

Also read: 38 voluntary defaulters fled the country in a span of 5 years, says the finance ministry

Last week, the CBI filed three fresh FIRs against Choksi’s absconding on a complaint by the Punjab National Bank (PNB) which brought to light an additional loss of ₹6,746 crore incurred by it and other banks of the consortium.

Four years after his dramatic escape and the failure of the state-run PNB to detect the scam between 2010 and 2018, it filed three complaints with the CBI on March 21, reporting t -additional losses caused by Choksi and his firm Gitanjali Gems Ltd, Nakshatra Brands Ltd. and Gili India Ltd.

The Punjab National Bank (PNB) and other members of the consortium had extended credit facilities to these companies.

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Karad also said that banks have written off ₹11.17 lakh crore bad loans from their books in the last six years till the financial year 2021-22.

The non-performing assets (NPAs), including those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years, are removed from the balance sheet of the concerned bank through write-off, he said in reply with – written

Banks write off NPAs as part of their regular exercise to clean up their balance sheet, avail the tax benefit and optimize capital, he said, adding, the writing off is done by the banks as per RBI guidelines and policy approved by their boards.

“According to RBI data, public sector banks (PSBs) and scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) have written off an aggregate amount of Rs 8,16,421 crore and Rs 11,17,883 crore respectively during the last six financial years,” he said.

Regarding the list, including the names of write-offs/defaulters who have defaulted more than ₹ 1 crore to public sector banks, RBI has informed that borrower wise information about written off loan accounts is not maintained by it, he said. .

In response to another question, Karad said, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) informed that the total number of voluntary defaulters who each had outstanding loans of ₹ 25 lakh and above in the banks of public sector was 8,045 on 30 June 2017 and 12,439. as at 30 June 2022; whereas in the private sector bank, it was 1,616 on 30 June 2017 and 2,447 on 30 June 2022.

He also said, “RBI informed that on 30.6.2017, there were 8,744 voluntary defaulters filed with the case and 917 voluntary defaulters that do not appear in cases in public and private sector banks, and as on 30.6 .2022, the same is 14,485 and 401 respectively.”

The list of voluntary defaulters of ₹ 25 lakh and above is available in the public domain on the websites of Credit Information Companies (CICs) and that of voluntary defaulters who do not they have a case of a confidential nature and are not in the public domain.

(With agency inputs)