At the same time, there has been close to 10 per cent increase in number of wilful defaulters on annual basis. Out of 8,915 cases of wilful defaults, banks have filed FIR (First Information Report) in 1,914 cases with outstanding loans of Rs 32,484 crore. During 2016-17, 27 public sector banks, including SBI and its five associates have written off Rs 81,683 crore, the highest in the last five fiscals. Gross NPAs of the public sector banks rose to Rs 6.41 lakh crore at the end of March 2017 as against Rs 5.02 lakh crore a year ago. RBI also allowed banks to name and shame wilful defaulters by publish their photographs.

Source: Economic Times August 15, 2017 09:00 UTC