By IANS,
New Delhi : Non-performing assets (NPAs) of government-run banks rose to 2.31 percent as on March 31, 2011, as compared to 2.27 percent in the previous year, led by a sharp increase in the bad loans of the State Bank group, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said Tuesday.
Total non-performing assets, loans on which interest payments or repayments are not being made on time, of the public sector banks rose to Rs.71,047 crore by the end of 2010-11 as compared to Rs.57,301 crore as on March 31, 2010, Meena said in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
For the State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, non-performing assets rose to 3.48 percent of its gross advances in the year under review from 3.28 percent in the previous year. The SBI Group non-performing assets rose to 3.12 percent from 2.82 percent.
While there has been an increase in the gross NPAs in absolute terms, Meena said growth in NPAs recorded in 2010-11 at 24 percent was lower than the increase of 30.1 percent in the previous year.
Minister said the pubic sector lenders in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had taken a number of steps to bring down the non-performing assets.
The measures undertaken by the banks to improve asset quality include prescribing prudential norms for provisioning and classification of NPAs, guidelines for prevention of slippages, corporate debt restructuring and other restructuring schemes and one time settlement schemes.