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 Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad has said that banks have written off bad loans worth Rs 14.56 lakh crore in the last nine financial years starting 2014-15. Out of the total Rs 14,56,226 crore, written off loans of large industries and services stood at Rs 7,40,968 crore. Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) have recovered an aggregate amount of Rs 2,04,668 crore in written-off loans, including corporate loans, since April 2014 and up to March 2023.

Karad stated that net of recovery in written-off loans during the financial year (net write-off) in public sector banks (PSBs) was Rs 1.18 lakh crore in the financial year (FY) 2017-18, which has declined to 0.91 lakh crore in FY 2021-22 and to Rs 0.84 lakh crore (RBI provisional data) in FY 2022-23. Net write-off loans by private sector banks stood at Rs 73,803 crore (RBI provisional data) in FY 2022-23. Net write-off as percentage of opening gross loans and advances in private sector banks was 1.25 per cent and 1.57 per cent in FY 2017-18 and FY 2022-23 respectively, and it was 2 per cent and 1.12 per cent for PSBs during the same period. 

The minister said comprehensive steps have been taken by the government and RBI to recover and to bring down NPAs, enabled by which, gross NPAs of PSBs have declined to Rs 4.28 lakh crore as on March 31, 2023 from Rs 8.96 lakh crore as on March 31, 2018. Talking about various steps taken by the government, he said the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, has been amended to make it more effective. He added that the pecuniary jurisdiction of debt recovery tribunals (DRTs) was increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh to enable the DRTs to focus on high-value cases, resulting in higher recovery for the banks and financial institutions.