Minister warns defaulters of property attachment

“The classification will be made on the basis of the loan amounts due from individual defaulters,†the minister said.

Patil said the formation of debt recovery tribunals has already yielded some results. The banks have recovered non-performing assets to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore during the first half of the current financial year and set a target of recovering Rs 10,000 crore during the entire fiscal. The gross NPAs of banking industry soared to Rs 60,841 crore as on March 31, 2000 as compared to Rs 58,722 crore in the previous fiscal, a whopping jump of Rs 2,119 crore.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ‘Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India for 1999-2000’ says gross NPAs of public sector banks alone have increased from Rs 51,710 crore in 1998-99 to Rs 53,294 crore in 1999-2000, while net NPAs increased to Rs 26,188 crore from Rs 24,211 crore in 1998-99.The real NPA figure should be much higher than Rs 60,841 crore since this figure captures only the NPAs of the scheduled commercial banks and does not include the sticky loans of three financial institutions.

Big Bull Harshad Mehta’s sticky account to State Bank of India amounting Rs 812 crore since November 1992 continues to remain as the most heavyweight NPA in the industry.