From Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali Gems to ABG Shipyard, top-50 defaulters owe over ₹87,000 crore to lenders

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₹87,295 crore to banks and financial institutions, according to the Union Finance Ministry. Fugitive Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali Gems is the biggest wilful defaulter owing ₹8,738 crore to banks, followed by Era Infra Engineering Limited owing ₹5,750 crore, REI Agro Limited ₹5,148 crore, ABG Shipyard Limited ₹4,774 crore, and Concast Steel and Power Limited ₹3,911 crore. Other wilful defaults are Rotomac Global Private Limited ₹2,894 crore, Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery Limited ₹2,846 crore, Frost International Limited ₹2,518 crore, Shri Lakshmi Cotsyn Limited ₹2,180 crore, and Zoom Developers Private Limited ₹2,066 crore.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said the top 10 wilful defaulters owe ₹40,825 crore to schedule commercial banks (SCBs). Karad added that SCBs have written off an aggregate amount of ₹10,57,326 crore during the last five financial years (RBI provisional data for FY 2022-23). Karad said the provision enabling banks to enter into compromise settlement in respect of borrowers categorised as fraud or wilful defaulter is not a new regulatory instruction and has been the settled regulatory stance for more than fifteen years.

In a separate reply, Karad said 66,069 frauds were reported in 2022-23 causing a loss of ₹85.25 crore. In the previous year, 65,893 frauds were reported with financial implications of ₹115.36 crore. In order to prevent fraudulent online transactions, he said, RBI has been issuing various instructions to the regulated entities from time to time.