Kingfisher Airlines tops a list of 50 top loan defaulters drawn up by public sector banks. The list, released by the All-India Bank Employees Association, says Vijay Mallya’s now-defunct airline owed Rs 2,673 crore to public sector banks. The list was released by the trade union ahead of its December 5 ‘All-India Demands Day’ against what it calls the corporate loot of public money and to press for stringent measures to recover bad loans from corporate borrowers.
According to the union, Winsome Diamond and Jewellery Company, with dues of Rs 2,660 crore, is the second highest defaulter, followed by Electrotherm India Ltd at Rs 2,211 crore.
Some of the other big-ticket defaulters are: Zoom Developers (Rs 1,810 crore), Sterling BioTech (Rs 1,732 crore), S. Kumars Nationwide (Rs 1,692 crore), Surya Vinayak Industries (Rs 1,446 crore), Corporate Ispat Alloys (Rs 1,360 crore), Forever Precious Jewellery and Diamonds (Rs 1,254 crore), and Sterling Oil Resources (Rs 1,197 crore).
The union, in a statement, pointed out that bad loans in public sector banks had crossed Rs 1,64,000 crore. “In the name of reforms and liberalisation, banking regulations are being de-regulated; one of the adverse effects of this is the increase in bad loans in the banks where big borrowers take loans (which) they do not repay,” the union said.
‘Kick out bad loans before they kill the banks’ is the slogan the union will highlight during the December 5 demands-day observance.