Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that the public sector banks have recovered Rs 36,551 crore of bad loans or NPAs during April-June quarter of the current financial year as compared to Rs 74,562 crore recoveries made in the full 2017-18 financial year.
Jaitley in a Facebook blog also defended loan write-offs by public sector banks and said they do not lead to loan waivers and the exercise helps lenders clean up their balance sheets and achieve taxation efficiency.
His comments came after reports that the country's 21 state-owned banks wrote-off Rs 3.16 lakh crore of loans in four years of the BJP government and made recoveries of Rs 44,900 crore of written off loans.
"Technical write-offs" are resorted to by banks as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines, he said.
"This however does not lead to any loan waiver. Recovery of loans continues rigorously by banks," he said and added, "In fact the defaulting management of most insolvent companies have been removed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC)."
It is pertinent to mention here that the Congress president Rahul Gandhi used the report to attack the Modi government. He alleged that the demonetisation converted black money into white and Rs 3.16 lakh crore of loans were written off.
"Modi's India - For Common Man: Notebandi-line up and put your money in banks. All your details into Aadhar. You can't use your own money. For Crony capitalists: Notebandi-convert all your black money to white. Let's write off 3.16 lakh crore using common man's money," Gandhi tweeted.
(With PTI inputs)
