****

Banks bid to contain NPA in corporate accounts

INDORE: State Bank of India (SBI) has five non-performing asset (NPA) corporate accounts in Indore and Bhopal of the state. Large corporate accounts are normally valued at Rs 10 crore and above.

Mid corporate group of SBI has two branches in the state, one each at Indore and Bhopal. Talking to ToI, general manager and head of the group, Abhay Chaudhry who sits in Indore, said, "We have five corporate accounts in all three branches which have turned as NPA." He added, "Two out of five such NPA corporate accounts have already been referred to corporate debt restructuring (CDR) cell and one of them was likely to have its turnaround shortly." CDR normally restructures such NPA account by either reducing the interest rate or extending the repayment tenure. Chaudhry maintained that his bank was making all efforts to turn such NPA accounts to regular ones. Any bank loan, in case repayment does not start in three months, becomes NPA as per RBI norms. He hinted that his bank is working out ways to find out a solution in these accounts' case.

Bankers prefer revised provisioning norms to the CDR route. The reason being that the RBI has withdrawn facility for restructuring NPA accounts when referred to CDR for the second time. A banker of a leading PSU bank in Indore, on condition of anonymity, told ToI CDR used to give a protection to maintain the asset class under the standard category. However, we are no more interested in the route after the facility for second time restructuring through the cell was withdrawn from us.

State level bankers' committee (SLBC) convener in Madhya Pradesh,Umesh Singh, who is also state head of Central Bank of India, said, "Sectors like steel and power continue to be risk zone in the state. Even real estate sector is full of risks." Asked to comment on the Ambika Solvex case, whose account has already turned NPA, he said, "The consortium of lenders, including my bank, SBI and Dena Bank are under the process of taking action against the firm as per SARFAESI Act."

When contacted, Indian Overseas Bank CMD M Narendra said, "We are treating all kinds of loans, big or small, equally. We are trying to facilitate those NPA corporate accounts, which are otherwise our regular customers and finding out ways how to make regular those loans so as to make our balance sheet cleaner." It is also being done by ways like one time settlement, Nardendra added.

Courtesy: The Times of India