The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has confiscated assets worth Rs 15,186.64 crore under the stringent prevention of money laundering law and almost all of these have been restituted to public sector banks, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

“As of December 1, 2023, assets amounting to Rs 15,186.64 crore under the PMLA have been confiscated by the ED out of which Rs 15,183.77 crore have been restituted to the public sector banks,” Sitharaman said replying to supplementary questions in the Rajya Sabha.

PMC Bank (now merged with Unity Small Finance Bank) has recovered Rs 104.02 crore with active cooperation and support from agencies, the finance minister also informed the House. 

Assets amounting to Rs 692.89 crore have been confiscated under the provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018,” Sitharaman added.

Sitharaman informed the House that as of March 31, 2023, legal suits were filed for recovery against 13,978 loan accounts, action under the SARFAESI Act has been initiated in 11,483 cases, FIRs have been filed in 5,674 cases, and an aggregate amount of Rs 33,801 crore has been recovered.

The finance minister said that over the last two financial years, the number of non-performing asset (NPA) accounts in the commercial banks have declined from 2.19 crore to 2.06 crore, showing a decrease of 6.2%.

Similarly, aggregate outstanding of such accounts (gross NPAs) has declined from Rs 7.41 lakh crore to 5.72 lakh crore during the same period, showing a decline of 22.9%.

Further, slippage ratio (fresh slippages of NPAs during the financial year as percentage of standard loans and advances at the beginning of the financial year) of banks has declined from 2.74% (fresh slippages of Rs 2.86 lakh crore) in the financial year 2021-22 to 1.78% (fresh slippages of Rs 2.13 lakh crore) in the financial year 2022-23.

Net NPA ratio, Sitharaman said, has come down to 0.95% in 2022-23 for all commercial banks from 5.94% in 2017-18. In the case of state-owned banks, the net NPA has declined to 1.24% from 5.94% in 2017-18.

“Amidst the global turmoil and sorry state of affairs as regards the banking systems, the Indian banks continue to stand healthy, strong, and resilient. In our country, not only the non-performing assets are coming down, but also the profit margins are going up,” Sitharaman said.