Few days back the budget of Rajasthan state was presented with a tax revenue figure of Rs 47096.05 crore. Compare this with the amount that top 10 borrowers have taken loans from public sector banks. These top 10 have to pay a staggering Rs 28,152 crore to the banks. It means almost half a state’s revenue has been lent to only 10 entities.

According to minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha as many as 433 borrowers have taken loans of more than Rs 1,000 crore and above amounting to Rs 16.31 lakh crore. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintains data on borrowers, including corporates, who have borrowed Rs 5 crore and above including non-performing assets (NPAs)  if any, Sinha has said.

Sinha said that to improve the health of the financial sector, reduce the NPAs, improve asset quality of banks and to prevent slippages, the RBI has issued instructions, including designing framework for revitalising distressed assets.

As per the framework, every bank has a board-approved loans recovery policy and it requires a robust mechanism for early detection of signs of distress, including prompt restructuring in the case of all viable accounts.

It has been stipulated to review NPA accounts of Rs 1 crore and above by the Board and top 300 NPA accounts by the management of the board, he said.

Meanwhile, the government is contemplating a host of measures to push stalled projects and deal with the problem of rising NPAs.

"We discussed the NPA issue (and) the situation in stalled projects. There are a variety of measures that we are planning to undertake as far as stalled projects are concerned.

The stalled projects have been adding to the NPAs of the banking sector. The recent Economic Survey had pointed out that unfavourable market conditions and delayed investments in last few years resulted into an 'alarmingly high rate' of increase in stalled projects which, as of December-end, stood at a staggering Rs 8.8 lakh crore.