Wilful defaulters’ dues at PNB rose 23% in 8 months

■ Bank makes available data pertaining defaults of `25 lakh or more

New Delhi, Feb. 18: Punjab National Bank has seen nearly 23 per cent jump in the amount which wilful defaulters owe it, with loan outstanding of `25 lakh and above, in preceding eight months from January.

The wilful defaulters, who have taken loans over `25 lakh from the bank, had a gross outstanding against them of `14,593.16 crore as on January 31, 2018, as per PNB data. When the bank first started giving out such data in June 2017, the gross loan outstanding against them was at `11,879.74 crore.

The amount has grown over 22.8 per cent in these eight months. The rise in such outstanding is startling, especially when the bank has been aggressive for over a year now in recovering bad loans.

The 123-year old bank has unearthed `11,400 crore fraud allegedly involving billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and associate companies. The fraud pertains to issuance of fake Letters of Understanding (LoUs) to companies associated with Modi by errant PNB employees that ena-bled these companies to raise buyers credit from international branches of other Indian lenders.

PNB has been putting out the list of wilful defaulters since June 2013 which it continued till May 31, 2017. Since then it is only listing out those wilful defaulters with outstanding of `25 lakh and above with their names from June 2017.

Bank’s net NPAs or bad loans fell to `34,076 crore at the end of Q3 of the current fiscal, from `34,994 crore at endDecember, 2016.