Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla has said Indian banks reported a total loss of about Rs 70,000 crore on account of the scams and frauds happened in recent three fiscal years. The extent of loss in fraud cases reported by scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) for FY16, FY17 and FY18 was Rs 16,409 crore, Rs 16,652 crore and Rs 36,694 crore, respectively.
However, the minister clarified that data of frauds is as per the year of reporting and not the year of occurrence of fraud or sanction of loan, letter of undertaking, which might be of an earlier period. Besides, he stated that gross advances by SCBs increased from Rs 25.03 lakh crore as on March 31, 2008, to Rs 68.75 lakh crore on March 31, 2014.
Admiring the stressed assets in the banking system, he stated that the spurt was on account of aggressive lending practices, wilful default, loan frauds, corruption in some cases and economic slowdown. Additionally, he said as per RBI data, there were 139 borrowers with aggregate gross NPAs of more than Rs 1,000 crore.