SBI writes off Rs 7,000 crore worth wilful defaulter loans including Vijay Mallya's

SBI has written off Rs 7,016 crore worth of loans to 63 of its top 100 wilful defaulters, a report in the DNA newspaper said today. [caption id=“attachment_2767202” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] According to the report, of the 100 defaulter accounts, 63 have been writen off, 31 partially writen off and six are now non-performing assets. The report also said the SBI has writen off Rs 48,000 crore bad loans as of 30 June 2016. The top in the wilful defaulter list is the dues of Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines, which stands at Rs 1,201 crore. Mallya is followed by KS Oil with dues of Rs 596 crore, and Surya Pharmaceuticals (Rs 526), the report said. SBI’s gross NPAs have seen a steady rise over the last six quarters. From 4.25 percent as of 30 March 2015, the figure spiked to 7.14 percent as of 30 September 2016. One of the reasons for the increase in NPAs is the balance sheet clean-up drive started by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. All the banks are seeing a rise in the NPAs as the measures taken by the RBI is bringing out the hidden bad loans in the system. However, the present write-off has to be seen in the context of the demonetisation drive that the government has kicked now. There has been argument among the public that while the move is inconveniencing the general public immensely, the government is doing nothing to recover the huge Rs 8 lakh crore of stressed assets of the banking sector. Notably, Mallya had on 2 March 2016 flown to the UK just before the banks moved the Supreme Court against him.