SBI's exposures to IL&FS, Jet provided for: Chairman

SBI has an exposure of about Rs 1,600 crore in Jet Airways which adds just 7 basis points to the bank's gross non-performing assets.

Mumbai: State-run State Bank of India (SBI) has an exposure of about Rs 1,600 crore in Jet Airways which adds just 7 basis points (bps) to the bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs or bad loans) SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said on Friday, dismissing the country's largest lender's exposure in the now-grounded airline as of any concern.

Referring to another noted NPA account -- IL&FS -- where the lender has an exposure of Rs 3,487 crore, Kumar said that 50 per cent provisioning had been made on this account.

"The entire Jet Airways exposure adds 7 bps to our gross NPA so it's not worrisome. In a loan book of Rs 23 lakh crore, Rs 1,600 crore comes precisely to 7 bps on gross NPAs.. so it's ignorable".

Terming the exposure to Jet Airways as "not even worth discussion", Kumar said: "The bank has made 100 per cent provisioning for Essar and two other accounts."

SBI has made 100 per cent provisioning for three NCLT accounts -- Essar Steel, Alok Industries and Bhushan Steel and Power, he said.

"For IL&FS, the NPAs have been recognised as per RBI norms and we have done 50 per cent provisioning on all the holding companies. Whatever has slipped, we have done 50 per cent provisioning. The exposure is Rs 3,487 crore and out of this, NPA is Rs 1,125 crore", said SBI Managing Director Avijit Basu.

Kumar also said the SBI had made every effort to keep the airline floating.

"SBI, being the leader of the (lenders') consortium, made disproportionate efforts to keep it (Jet Airways) flying. Otherwise, if it was any other account, we would not have bothered over it," he said.

"We have made more than required provisioning even on Jet Airways", he added.