New Delhi: Banks in India have recovered Rs 10 lakh crores from bad loans in the past ten years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman claimed on Friday. She claimed that this was achieved after the reforms of the Narendra Modi government, IANS reported.
The Finance Minister wrote on X, "The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has investigated around 1,105 bank fraud cases, which resulted in the attachment of proceeds of crime amounting to 64,920 crores. As of December 2023, assets amounting to 15,183 crores have been restituted to public sector banks."
"The Opposition, habituated to spreading lies, wrongly claims that there has been a "waiver" of loans given to industrialists," Sitharaman said.
Then she charged at the opposition saying, "Despite claiming to be "experts" in finance and economy, it's a pity that opposition leaders are still unable to distinguish between write-offs and waivers. After the 'write-offs' as per RBI's guidelines, banks actively pursue the recovery of bad loans. And, there has been no "waiver" of loans for any industrialist."
According to her, banks showed no leniency towards defaulters in recovering bad loans, and the process is still ongoing.
Further, to back her claims, she said that the Indian banking sector achieved a milestone by registering a record net profit in 2023-24, crossing 3 lakh crores.
She said, "This is in stark contrast to the situation before 2014 when the Congress-led UPA government turned the banking sector into a cesspool of bad loans, vested interests, corruption and mismanagement."
She claimed that the UPA government, before 2014, had sown the seeds of the non-performing assets (NPA) crisis through 'Phone banking'. That government-issued loans to undeserving businesses under pressure from leaders affiliated with it.
"Many banks hid and avoided reporting their bad loans by 'evergreening' or restructuring them. Various measures by our government and the RBI, such as the Asset Quality Review, disclosed hidden mountains of NPAs and ended the accounting tricks used to hide them," the Finance Minister said.