Bankers meet today in Mumbai to decide on large defaulters

The leading bankers in meeting planed in Mumbai today likely to finalise their next course of action on six of the 12 bad loan accounts for immediate referral to National Company Law Tribunal, NCLT, after the RBI named the largest defaulters to face bankruptcy proceedings. 

Quoting a banker PTI said, the first set of six troubled accounts, worth more than Rupees 1.6 Lakh Crore, are Bhushan Steel responsible for 44,478 crore rupees Non-performing asset, NPA, of banks, Bhusan Power and Steel for 37,248 crore rupees, Essar Steel has a loan of 37,284 crore rupees which has not been returned yet, Alok Industries' 22,075 crore rupees debt, Amtek Auto loan of 14,074 crore and Monnet Ispat's 12,115 crore rupees debt have been declared as bad loan.

Last week, the RBI's internal advisory committee had sent the list of 12 accounts to bankers for immediate reference under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.The agency reports that Lanco Infra having 44,365 crore rupees loan, Electrosteel Steels responsible for 10,274 crore rupees bad loan, Era Infra with 10,065 crore, Jypaee Infratech, 9,635 crore rupees, ABG Shipyard



6,953 crore rupees and Jyoti Structures with a defaulted loan of 5,165 crore are the other accounts named for bankruptcy action.

The news agency said, out of these 12 accounts six are led by SBI. Other accounts are linked with PNB, ICICI Bank, Union Bank, IDBI Bank and Corporation Bank. Total NPAs of the banking system stand at over eight trillion rupees of which six trillion rupees are with public sector banks. 

Since these are large accounts and involve multiple banks, the lenders will try to take a common view on all administrative requirements before referring these accounts to the NCLT. Once a case is referred to the NCLT, there is a time line of 180 days to decide on a resolution plan. An additional 90 days can also be given. If a plan is not decided, then the company will go into liquidation.

According to RBI, 12 accounts owe Rs 2.5 trillion to the system, which constitute around 25 per cent of gross bad loans. Last month, the government had cleared an ordinance to amend the Banking Regulation Act, giving the RBI more powers to direct banks to resolve bad loans.