Banks lost Rs 10 lakh crore in 5 years, Mehul Choksi top debtor

New Delhi, August 2

Banks have written off loans worth about Rs 10 lakh crore in the last five financial years, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

The write-off amount was Rs 1.57 lakh crore in 2021-22, Rs 2.02 lakh crore in 2020-21, Rs 2.34 lakh crore in 2019-20, Rs 2.36 lakh crore in 2018-19, and Rs 1.61 lakh crore in 2017-18. This amounted to Rs. 9.91 lakh crore written off in the last five years.

The total number of wilful defaulters, maintained from 2018-19 onwards, in the last four years stood at 10,306. The highest number of 2,840 wilful defaulters were reported during 2020-21, followed by 2,700 the next year. Sharing details of top 25 wilful defaulters at the end of March 2022, Karad said Mehul Choksi’s company Gitanjali Gems topped the list with Rs 7,110 crore default, followed by Era Infra Engineering (Rs 5,879 crore), Concast Steel and Power (Rs 4,107 crore), REI Agro (Rs 3,984 crore) and ABG Shipyard (Rs 3,708 crore) among others.