NDA scores three times over UPA: RTI

BANKS' LOANS WRITE-OFF

MUMBAI: In a dubious distinction of sorts, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA rule achieved the highest loans write-off between 2015 and 2019, which is more than three times compared to the figures of bad loans written off during the previous Congress-led UPA regime from 2004-2014, as per an RTI revelation.

During the UPA's 10-year rule, around Rs 2,20,328 crore was written off by various banks, and this figure shot up to Rs 7,94,354 crore during the NDA regime from 2015-2019, resulting in a corresponding reduction in the banks' NPAs.

The data was provided under an RTI query by Pune-based businessman Prafful Sarda, giving some shocking insights into the state of affairs of not only public sector banks, but also those in the private sector and foreign banks.

The RTI reply figures around two-dozen public sector banks, some three-dozen in private sector, nine Scheduled Commercial Banks, and a whopping four-dozen foreign banks, and includes several in each category which have not written off any loans.

Of the loan write-offs in the Congress' decade (2004-2014), the PSBs accounted for approximately Rs 1,58,994 crore, while the amounts written off by the private banks was Rs 41,391 crore and for foreign banks it was Rs 19,945 crore, with no write-offs by Scheduled Banks.

Later, in the NDA regime (2015-2019), the figures provided show a phenomenal increase with the PSBs accounting for a stupendous Rs 6,24,370 crore loan write-off, with the private banks writing off Rs 1,51,989 crore and the foreign banks shared the remaining 17,995 crore, (Total — Rs 7,94,354 crore), besides an additional write-off by Scheduled Banks totalling Rs 1,295 crore (Total - Rs 7,95,649 crore).

In a silver lining, however, during the BJP rule, there was some recovery from the write-offs between 2015 and 2019 — a paltry Rs 82,571 crore or roughly 12 per cent of the total Rs 7,94,354 crore written off, according to the RTI reply. (IANS)

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