SBI’s Rs 7,000 cr loan ‘write-off’ is not a waiver: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked opposition members in the Rajya Sabha not to go by the literal meaning of write-off. “So there is a little bit of malapropism involved in this. Don’t go by literal meaning write-off. Write-off does not mean loan waiver. Loan still remains. You still continue to pursue,” he said. He was intervening during a debate in the house on the government’s demonetisation action. Jaitley was replying to CPM leader Sitaram Yechury who referred to a newspaper report which said SBI wrote off loans of wilful defaulters including Rs 1,200 crore of Kingfisher Airlines. 

The minister said: “It (write-off) does not mean that the loan ceases to be a loan. We will still chase the loan. The entry in the book changes that is from being performing assets, it become a non-performing (asset).” Without specifically referring to the Kingfisher case, the Finance Minister said, this loan was restructured when another government was in power. 

“This is the only loan for which second restructure was wanted by that government. So, we inherited a terrible legacy. But only in the accounting book, the performing assets becomes non-performing that’s all. Otherwise the liability to pay and right to recover still remains,” he said.