NEW DELHI: Public sector banks (PSBs) have reported 16 per cent rise in number of wilful defaulters at 8,167 who collectively owe them Rs 76,685 crore at the end of March 2016.

As against the previous year, there is 16 per cent rise in wilful defaulters owing over Rs 25 lakh each to 8,167 from 7,031 at the end of March 2015. However, dues to the bank have increased to 28.5 per cent to Rs 76,685 crore in 2015-16 from the earlier Rs 59,656 crore.

To recover loans from such defaulters, banks have filed 1,724 FIRs with a total outstanding of Rs 21,509 crore in 2015-16. The conviction rate in all these cases was only 1.14 per cent. Last fiscal, banks recovery efforts in such cases yielded Rs 3,498 crore. There were 129 wilful defaulters who borrowed loans in excess of Rs 100 crore amounting to Rs 28,525 crore from PSBs as on June 30, 2016, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. To bring down NPAs, he said, RBI has formulated guidelines for early recognition of financial distress for recovery from borrowers. “Before a loan account turns NPA, banks are required to identify stress in the account under three sub-categories of Special Mention Account (SMA),” he said. Banks are required to report credit information on borrowers having aggregate exposure of more than Rs 5 crore to Central Repository of Information of Large Credits (CRILC), he said. “As soon as an account is reported by any of the lenders to CRILC as SMA-2, Joint Lenders’ Forum (JLF) is to be mandatorily formed if the aggregate exposure of lenders is more than 100 crore,” he said. In a separate reply, Gangwar said banks have seized property worth Rs 64,519 crore during 2015-16 as against Rs 54,060 crore in the previous fiscal. These properties were seized by invoking the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act.—PTI