Rs. 2.4 Lakh Crore Loans Written Off In Over 3 Years
Mumbai: Public sector banks (PSBs) wrote off Rs. 2.41 lakh crore worth of loans in over three years, between April 2014 and September 2017. This was disclosed by minister of state for finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in Parliament on Tuesday.
The disclosure came under strong criticism from Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. "I am shocked to see that at a time, when the farmers in the country are crying and committing suicide for their loan burden and asking for waiver of farmers' loan, the Government of India have not even considered that," the West Bengal chief minister said in a Facebook post.
In his reply to the Rajya Sabha, the union finance minister of state said that writing off non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans is a regular exercise conducted by banks to clean up their balance sheet and to achieve taxation efficiency.
"As per Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data on global operations, public sector banks have written-off (including compromise) an amount of Rs. 2,41,911 crore from financial year 2014-15 till September 2017," the minister said.
Borrowers, however, continue to be liable for repayment despite the write-off, the minister added.
Bank write off is the deduction in the value of earnings by the amount of an expense or loss. It means to remove loans from their balance sheets only and reduce the overall tax liability.
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Around 70 people killed in attack on hospital in Sudan's Darfur region: WHO chief
El Fasher (AP): Some 70 people were killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the chief of the World Health Organisation said on Sunday, part of a series of attacks coming as the African nation's civil war escalated in recent days.
The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, which local officials blamed on the rebel Rapid Support Forces, came as the group has seen apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces under the command of army chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan. That includes Burhan appearing near a burning oil refinery north of Khartoum on Saturday that his forces said they seized from the RSF.
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide and sanctions targeting Burhan, have not halted the fighting.
In the Saudi hospital attack in El Fasher, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offered the death toll in a post on the social platform X.
Officials and others in the capital of North Darfur province had cited a similar figure Saturday, but Ghebreyesus is the first international source to provide a casualty number. Reporting on Sudan is incredibly difficult given communication challenges and exaggerations by both the RSF and the Sudanese military.
“The appalling attack on Saudi Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, led to 19 injuries and 70 deaths among patients and companions,” Ghebreyesus wrote. “At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care.”
Another health facility in Al Malha also was attacked Saturday, he added.
“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” he wrote. “Above all, Sudan's people need peace. The best medicine is peace.”
Ghebreyesus did not identify who launched the attack, though local officials had blamed the RSF for the assault.
The RSF and Sudan's military began fighting each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war.
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