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State Bank of India (SBI) has no plans to provide fresh loan to the cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines, the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, said today.
“SBI has informed that currently there is no such plan to provide additional loan to Kingfisher Airlines,” he said in the Rajya Sabha to a question as to whether SBI had initiated a proposal to bail-out the airline by sanctioning fresh loan of Rs 1,500 crore.
Kingfisher Airlines has a debt of Rs 7,057.08 crore and the financial crunch has hit its operations with dozens of flights being either cancelled or clubbed. Tax authorities have added to its woes by freezing its bank accounts for non-payment of taxes.
Asked about the total exposure of SBI and other banks to the Vijay Mallya-promoted airlines at the end of the current fiscal, Mr Mukherjee said: “since the accounts as on March 31, 2012 are to be finalised, it is not possible to ascertain the outstanding of KFA’’.
He also said that SBI, a leader of consortium of lenders to the air carrier, has informed that the airlines' account is ‘sub-standard’ with eight public sector banks (PSBs) and ‘standard’ with five PSBs as on February 2012.
“Consortium agreed to ‘holding on operations’ whereby a portion of the credits into the account are appropriated for reducing irregularities in the accounts of banks,” he said.
However, all interest and dues up to August, 2011 have been paid, he said.
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