NT NETWORK
PANAJI
With banks forced to clean up their act, their branches in Goa have stepped up salvage efforts of bad loans.
On Friday bankers turned the heat on defaulting loan borrowers from mining sector and said that they are going for all-out recovery. The process to get back money from barge owners will commence from April 1, 2016 after the government’s one-time-settlement scheme ends, bankers said.
The government has asked the banks to submit details by February 21 about the total amount owed to them by mining sector borrowers.
The barge owners asked for more time to pay up and an extension of the OTS scheme. But the bankers said that they are not willing to wait and want their money back.
They said this at a meeting of the state-level bankers committee attended by zonal heads of all banks, urban co-operative banks, RBI and government officials.
At the SLBC meeting, the government urged the banks to be lenient to barge owners who are part of the OTS scheme. If they are not in position to pay the 30 per cent upfront amount then the banks should not insist on the full amount but take whatever is paid back, said Meenakshi Gad, joint secretary, finance.
However, the bankers refused to accept less, saying that they will take steps to get their all dues from all the barge owners.
The total exposure of all banks in Goa to mining stakeholders (truckers, barges and mining equipment operators) is estimated over Rs 1,744 crore and the barge owners are the big-ticket borrowers. Yet very few of them have come forward to avail the OTS scheme with only truck owners taking benefits of it.
Moreover even the barge owners who have availed the scheme have not paid up the upfront amount, said one PSU bank.
The bankers said that they plan to take immediate action against all the borrowers who have not been part of the scheme.
D N Gothe, zonal manager, Bank of Maharashtra, said the entire barge loan portfolio of banks in Goa has turned into non-performing assets. But the barge owners have given good collateral and they plan to use it.
Bank of Maharashtra, he added, is seeking permission from the government regarding legal action against the defaulting borrowers.
“The government had asked us to take compassionate view initially but we have waited too long,” he said.
To tackle loans of mining-hit borrowers the government had launched a debt relief scheme with onetime settlement wherein subsidy ranging between 30-35 per cent would be provided to borrowers who become part of the scheme.
A total of 1,740 borrowers with loan aggregating Rs 395 crore have come forward for settlement. Most of them are truckers.