PSB Loan Write Off India: Public sector banks (PSBs) have written off loans worth Rs 12.08 lakh crore since FY16. In a written reply to Rajya Sabha on July 22, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said, "Banks write-off non-performing assets (NPAs), including, inter-alia, those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years, as per RBI guidelines and policy approved by banks’ Boards." Chaudhary further added that such write-off does not result in waiver of liabilities of borrowers and therefore, it does not benefit the borrower. He added that the borrowers continue to be liable for repayment and banks continue to pursue recovery actions initiated in these accounts. "As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, public sector banks (PSBs) have written-off an aggregate loan amount of Rs 12,08,828 crore, from the financial year 2015-16 to financial year 2024-25 (provisional data)," the Union Minister said. Chaudhary was responding to a query from TMC MP Ritabrata Banerjee, who asked whether Public Sector Banks had written off a huge amount of loans over the past ten years. Banerjee also requested bank-wise and year-wise data for the last five years, along with the reasons behind these write-offs. Recovery in written-off loans Chaudhary stated that recovery in written-off loans is an ongoing process. ".banks continue pursuing their recovery actions initiated against borrowers under the various recovery mechanism available to them, such as filing of a suit in civil courts or in Debts Recovery Tribunals, action under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, filing of cases in the National Company Law Tribunal under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, etc," the MoS Finance said. Loans written-off by Public Sector Banks (Amounts in crore Rs.) Bank FY 2020-21 FY 2021-22 FY 2022-23 FY 2023-24 FY 2024-25* Bank of Baroda 14,782 17,967 17,998 10,518 8,796 Bank of India 8,815 10,443 8,694 9,897 7,959 Bank of Maharashtra 4,931 3,118 1,491 990 796 Canara Bank 9,132 8,422 12,760 11,827 14,350 Central Bank of India 5,992 1,236 10,258 10,001 3,370 Indian Bank 8,371 8,347 7,952 8,734 4,916 Indian Overseas Bank 4,618 3,769 3,412 7,179 3,885 Punjab and Sind Bank 71 1,134 2,283 796 1,521 Punjab National Bank 15,877 18,312 16,578 18,317 12,159 State Bank of India 34,402 19,666 24,061 16,161 20,309 UCO Bank 9,410 3,851 2,575 1,938 1,566 Union Bank of India 16,983 19,484 19,175 18,264 11,634 Source: RBI * RBI provisional data for FY 2024-25
