Lakshmi Vilas Bank, YES Bank lead NPA pile-up among private banks in Karnataka

In Karnataka non-performing assets (NPA) of all banks combined stood at ₹57,070.02 crore from a total of 28 lakh accounts.

“Agriculture topped the list of sectors with high NPAs at ₹17,772.87 crore (from 12.20 lakh accounts) and is followed by non-priority sector at ₹17,096.27 crore (7.73 lakh accounts), other priority sector is ₹11,470.07 crore (4.20 lakh accounts), MSME ₹8,887.42 crore (3.35 lakh), housing ₹1,332.88 crore (25,042) and education ₹510.51 crore (24,892),” a senior officer at Karnataka SLBC said.

As on September 30, 2020, NPAs in private banks category - Lakshmi Vilas Bank (the bank since November 2020 has been merged with DBS Bank India Ltd (DBIL), the subsidiary of DBS Bank, Singapore) stood out with NPAs to the tune of ₹2,979.10 crore from 15,190 accounts, while YES Bank’s NPA stood at ₹4,675.23 crore from 946 accounts.

Among the lead banks category - Canara Bank’s total NPA stood at ₹12,531.66 crore (with 3.41 lakh accounts), State Bank of India ₹11,663.58 crore (7.37 lakh accounts). Under nationalised banks - Punjab National Bank with ₹4,121.52 crore (12,735 accounts) and Bank of India is ₹1,069.85 crore (19,477 accounts).

“SLBC has requested the Karnataka government to provide guidance and assistance for the recovery of bad loans,” the officer said.

On the recovery front, banks in the state have recovered a total of ₹460.87 crore so far under Sarfaesi, DRT and Lok Adalats Acts. Of the recoveries under Sarfaesi was ₹114.25 crore, DRT ₹335.19 crore and Lok Adalat ₹11.43 crore.

Education loan

Banks in the State up to September quarter have disbursed education loans to the tune of ₹650 crore covering 30,102 students, as against the annual financial target of ₹7,725 crore under both priority and non-priority segments.

According to the officer “The performance of banks in lending under education loans as the percentage of achievement v/s target is 8.41 percent. This poor loan disbursal is mainly due to the education sector getting affected due Covid-19 pandemic.”

“At the SLBC meet in December 2020, member banks were told to sanction more under education loans to the eligible students to achieve the target,” he added.

Due to record rains and flooding in the State, banks were asked to restructure loans in natural calamity affected districts. Due to unprecedented rains and flooding in August - 23 districts and 130 taluks were affected. In September - 16 districts and 43 taluks got affected and in October - 5 districts and 7 taluks got affected.

After the revenue department submitted crop-wise loss data for September quarter, about 230 accounts amounting to ₹5.15 crore were re-structured.