Last week, Canara Bank in an RTI disclosure said it has written off loans worth Rs 1.29 lakh crore in last 11 yrs. Opposition leaders then slammed govt over ‘loot’ of public money.
The issue of loan write-offs and waivers is once again in the news, driven by the latest RTI disclosure by Canara Bank that it has written off loans worth Rs 1.29 lakh crore over the last 11 years.
However, the discussion surrounding this not only erroneously conflates loan write-offs with loan waivers, but also misses the significant improvement in public sector banks’ write-off behaviour.
Following the disclosure by Canara Bank, several opposition leaders and political commentators — including lawyer Prashant Bhushan and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury — took to social media to slam the government over the supposed “loot” of public money as a result of loan write-offs by public sector banks. Even Congress spokespersons and leaders seem to have mistaken written-off loans for waived-off ones.
TCA Sharad Raghavan 