Nearly Rs 5,000 crore of loans or 16.32% of the total bank assets in Maharashtra under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana to help small businesses are unpaid as of June 2022, as per official data.

Parbhani district in the backward Marathwada region of Maharashtra has the highest non-performing assets (NPAs) at 60.54%, PTI reported quoting data released during the State Level Bankers Committee meeting held in Aurangabad on Monday.

The Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana was launched in April 2015 for providing loans to non-corporate and non-farm small/micro enterprises.

Since the introduction of the scheme, many experts, including former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, had warned about the possibility of high NPAs under the scheme, PTI reported.

As per the data, Rs 30,019 crore was taken as loan under the MUDRA scheme as of June 2022 by more than 52 lakh borrowers in Maharashtra. Out of this, Rs 4,898 crore taken by 6.19 lakh borrowers has been classified as NPAs.

The outstanding loan amount in Parbhani district is Rs 759 crore, of which Rs 459 crore constitutes the NPA, it said. Parbhani is followed by Hingoli having NPAs of 33.31% with Rs 111 crore of loans being unpaid, as per the data.

The third highest MUDRA NPA is in Mumbai at 29.97% and the amount unpaid is Rs 248 crore, the data said.

A dozen state-run banks account for a majority Rs 4,031 crore of the overall Rs 4,898 crore of sour loans, it said. 

The NPAs of private sector banks stood at Rs 435 crore. Two regional rural banks have ₹325 crore of NPAs and eight small finance banks have Rs 104 crore of NPAs under the scheme, the data said.