Allahabad Bank looks at Rs 5,500 cr recovery in FY19
Kolkata, June 27 : State-run lender Allahabad Bank is looking at a recovery of around Rs 5,500 crore in the current fiscal, an official said on Wednesday.
The bank has submitted a roadmap to the Centre and if everything goes "well and smooth" as per its projections, it was likely to come out of prompt corrective action (PCA), imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), by March 2020, the official said.
"We are expecting Rs 3,000 crore recovery through resolution in NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) in the entire financial year, another Rs 2,000 crore through normal recovery process and Rs 400-500 crore through asset sales," Allahabad Bank Executive Director N.K. Sahoo said.
"We have recently recovered around Rs 1,300 crore from the resolution of Bhusan Steel and Electrosteel Steels," he added.
The bank has an outstanding exposure of Rs 4,000 crore in several accounts referred to NCLT including Uttam Galva, Alok Industries, Essar Steel, he said, adding that it was hopeful of recovering from these accounts in the current fiscal.
The bank may have to take a hair-cut upto 50-60 per cent in these accounts, he added.
"We have created a NCLT cell to effectively monitor the NCLT accounts. We have almost 94 (stressed) accounts referred by us as well as by other lenders amounting around Rs 12,000 crore.
"Almost 45 per cent of our gross NPA is in the NCLT," Sahoo told shareholders here at the 16th Annual General Meeting of the Allahabad Bank.
Capital requirement for the lender during the current fiscal would be close to Rs 9,000 crore, Sahoo said on the sidelines of the meeting.
"The bank would require close to Rs 9,000 crore worth capital this fiscal," he said.
Of the total capital requirement, the bank requested the government to pump in Rs 7,000 crore and was looking to raise close to Rs 1,900 crore through different modes this fiscal.
This apart, it is hopeful of raising close to Rs 500 crore from sale of non-core assets.
"A roadmap has been submitted to the (Finance) Ministry. If everything goes well as per the bank's projection, we are expecting to come out of PCA by March 2020," he said.
At the end of the 2017-18, gross NPA (non performing assets) of the bank stood at Rs 26,562.76 crore as compared to Rs 20,687.83 crore in FY 17 (2016-17) and Net NPA remained at Rs 12,229.13 crore as on March 31, 2018 as against Rs 13,433.51 crore in FY 17.
Owing to high non-performing assets (NPA) and negative return on assets (RoA) for two consecutive years, the bank was brought under prompt corrective action framework by the RBI on January 2, Sahoo told shareholders.
In fact, subsequently, the RBI had imposed additional restrictions on Allahabad Bank under prompt corrective action (PCA) framework.
It was asked to restrict expansion of risk-weighted assets (RWA), reduce exposure to high-risk loans and restrict accessing or renewing wholesale deposits.
The bank had posted a net loss of Rs 3,509.63 crore in the March quarter of 2017-18.
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Wife abandons man over water crisis in MP village; pipeline work starts after his complaint
Bhopal (PTI): A village in eastern Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori district is hoping for an end to its water woes, courtesy of a woman who refused to put up with the water scarcity and left her husband in protest.
The man, Jitendra Soni of Devra village, took his water-induced marital grievance to the district administration during the weekly ‘Jansunwai’ (a public outreach programme) on Tuesday.
Acting on Soni’s complaint, the Dindori collector directed officials from the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department to resolve the water shortage in Devra, located just 3 km from the district headquarters.
The tribal-dominated Dindori district, bordering Chhattisgarh, is located about 460 km from the MP capital Bhopal.
Soni told PTI, “My wife has abandoned me due to the water crisis in my village. She went to her parents’ house along with our children. I shared my plight with the district collector. The PHE department has been directed to take steps to arrange water in the village.”
Soni said he tried to persuade his wife Laxmi to stay back, but she didn’t listen.
“I told her that our children’s studies would get affected, but she said there is no future in the village due to the water crisis,” he said.
Soni claimed that several other women from his village are ready to leave due to water scarcity.
“There are several families that are not speaking up out of fear of infamy and have moved out of the village silently. But I am an unemployed labourer and there is no scope of arranging water on my own,” he claimed.
Soni said their village has a handpump and 2,000-2,500 residents are dependent on it.
“There is a huge crowd at the handpump from morning till night. People hardly get any water from there,” he said.
PHE official Afzal Amanullah told PTI that they have started work to resolve the issue.
“The village has a borewell that was dug under the ‘Nal, Jal’ scheme, but the water level has dropped, and people are not getting adequate water in Devra village. The villagers have demanded that they be provided water connections from the overhead tank in a neighbouring village,” he said.
Amanullah said that the work of connecting the old pipeline in Devra with the overhead tank is being carried out on Wednesday.
“We are going to start the water supply through the overhead tank,” he said.
He said the work to provide tap water to Devra, Hans Nagar and Saket Nagar was earlier sanctioned under the ‘Jal Jeevan’ Mission. Accordingly, the overhead tank was constructed in Hans Nagar.
After connecting the existing pipeline network in Devra to the overhead tank, Soni and other villagers will have better access to water, he said.
The PHE is trying to connect all the areas of the village through water supply lines, Amanullah added.
