Parliament: Banks Wrote Off NPAs Over Rs 10 Lakh Crore in Past Five Financial Years

New Delhi: Banks have written off bad loans worth Rs 10,09,511 crore during the last five financial years, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed Parliament on Tuesday.

The non-performing assets (NPAs), including those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years, are removed from the balance sheet of the bank concerned by way of write-off, she said in a reply to Rajya Sabha.

"Banks write off NPAs as part of their regular exercise to clean up their balance sheet, avail tax benefit and optimise capital, in accordance with RBI guidelines and policy approved by their boards. As per inputs received from RBI, Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) wrote off an amount of Rs 10,09,511 crore during the last five financial years," she said.

SCBs have recovered an aggregate amount of Rs 6,59,596 crore, including recovery of Rs 1,32,036 crore from written-off loan accounts during the last five financial years, she said.

Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha Govts Want Caste Census

Three state governments -- Bihar, Maharashtra and Odisha -- and a few organisations have requested to collect caste details in the forthcoming Census, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai also said the Central government has not enumerated caste-wise population other than SCs and STs in census since Independence.

"Three state governments, namely, Bihar, Maharashtra and Odisha and a few organisations have requested to collect caste details in the forthcoming census," he said in a written reply to a question.

Rai said the intent of the government for conducting Census 2021 was notified in the Gazette of India on March 28, 2019. However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the conduct of Census 2021 and the related field activities have been postponed until further orders.

The minister said in the Census, data is collected on demographic and various socioeconomic parameters like education, SC and ST, religion, language, marriage, fertility, disability, occupation and migration of the individuals.

The questionnaire for the first phase of census was notified in the Gazette of India, he said.

Rai said the forthcoming census is to be the first digital census and there is a provision for self-enumeration. A mobile app for collection of data and a census portal for management and monitoring of various census-related activities have been developed.

Rs 64,000cr Investment Proposals for J&K; Rs 2,500cr Already Received

The Jammu and Kashmir government has reported investment proposals of Rs 64,000 crore of which over Rs 2,500 crore has already been received, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said Rs 840.55 crore investment has came in 2017-18, Rs 590.97 crore investment in 2018-19, Rs 296.64 crore in 2019-20, Rs 412.74 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 376.76 crore in 2021-22.

The government of Jammu and Kashmir has reported receiving proposals for investments worth approximately Rs 64,000 crore so far, he said replying to a written question.