Indian Bank has reported a 37 per cent drop in net profit at Rs 331 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, against Rs 526 crore in the comparable previous year period.

T.M. Bhasin, Chairman and Managing Director, attributed this to additional provisioning of Rs 240 crore and also pointed out that there was an exceptional income of Rs 103 crore in the third quarter of last year.

Bhasin said during the quarter there was a provision of Rs 40 crore made towards pension corpus for the second time option given to those who opted for voluntary retirement scheme and an adhoc provision of Rs 15 crore towards expected wage revision of employees.

There was also an additional provision of Rs 96 crore made towards restructured assets.

Increase in NPA: The bank also reported a steep increase in gross NPA at 3.18 per cent against 1.25 per cent and net NPA at 2.15 per cent against 0.80 per cent in the previous year period. “The jump in NPA is due to technical reasons and we are confident that the accounts would turn good during the course of the year.”

Total income went up 6.4 per cent to Rs 3,787 crore (Rs 3,557 crore).

The bank, during the nine-month period ended December 31, 2012, made an NPA recovery of Rs 442 crore in addition to upgradation of NPAs to standard accounts to the tune of Rs 360 crore.

Bhasin also said the recent easing of the policy rates by the Reserve Bank of India will leave an additional Rs 330 crore in the hands of the bank. The bank does not require additional capital.

Hence there will be no infusion of funds by the Government.

>ravikumar.ramanujam@thehindu.co.in

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