Top 50 wilful defaulters owe Rs. 92,570 crores to Indian banks
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With the long arm of the law reaching them, the government informed Parliament that, as of March 2022, the top 50 wilful defaulters in India owed Rs 92,570 crore to the Public Sector Banks (PSBs).
Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad told the Lok Sabha on Monday that, at Rs 7,848 crore, Gitanjali Gems, founded by now-fugitive business owner Mehul Choksi, was the biggest defaulter.
The PSBs have recovered Rs. 4.8 trillion (Rs. 4.8 lakh crore), including a recovery of Rs 1.03 trillion (Rs. 1.03 lakh crore) from written-off loans during the last five financial years.
In a written reply to another question, Karad said that, in the last five years, the Indian banks have written off loans worth Rs 10.1 trillion.
Apart from Gitanjali Gems, the other top wilful defaulters are Era Infra Engineering (Rs 5,879 crore), REI Agro (Rs 4,803 crore), Comcast Steel and Power (Rs 4,596 crore), ABG Shipyard (Rs 3,708 crore), Frost International (Rs 3,311 crore), Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery (Rs 2,931 crore), Rotomac Global (Rs 2,893 crore), Coastal Projects (Rs 2,311 crore) and Zoom Developers (Rs 2,147 crore).
Wilful defaulters are those who can repay the loans but are unwilling to do so.
According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), defaulters cannot take new loans and set up new ventures for five years. The Centre has brought in a law to bring wilful fugitive defaulters under India’s legal net.
The SBI has written off bad loans worth Rs 19,666 crore in 2021-22, followed by Union Bank of India (Rs 19,484 crore), Punjab National Bank (Rs 18,312 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 17,967 crore), Bank of India (Rs 10,443 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 10,148 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 9,405 crore), Axis Bank (Rs 9,126 crore), Indian Bank (Rs 8,347 crore), and Canara Bank (Rs 8,210 crore), he said.
