The country’s largest lender SBI has set up 14 account tracking centres to check non-performing assets. In a written reply Minister of State for Finance, Namo Narain Meena informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday that the SBI has informed that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India had sought reasons for higher provisions of NPAs for the fourth quarter of 2010-11.

To another query on SBI earmarking higher provision for bad loans, Mr. Meena said, fresh slippages to bad loans during the 4th quarter of the financial year 2010-11 were to the tune of 5,645 crore rupees for which higher prudential provisions were made as per Reserve Bank of India guidelines. Another reason given by the bank was that during the nine-month period ended December 31, 2010, the Bank had made higher provisions for NPAs over and above the prescribed Income Recognition Asset Classification norms to achieve the 70 per cent provision coverage ration as per RBI guidelines.

Responding to another query, Meena said that as on March 31, 2011, the gross NPA of public sector banks stood at 71,047 crore rupees which also include NPA of loans availed by industrial houses. He added that RBI and banks have already taken various steps to improve the health of the financial sector, reduce NPAs, and to improve asset quality, like prescribing prudential norms for provisioning and classification of NPAs, guidelines for prevention of slippages, debt restructuring schemes among other initiatives.