With Scams and Bad Loans, Banks May Have Cost Each Indian Rs 7,600

Don’t think you escaped unharmed in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam. In a way, the price the banks now have to pay, will have to be paid by you. And the bill is so large, that this amount keeps increasing.

According to the estimates so far, the cost of the scam is at around Rs 20,000 crore. Now if we started calculating the losses for the bank’s share prices dropping, the final number would be mind-boggling.

Mistakes like the one made by PNB have also been made by many other national banks of late. Scams, unsound decisions and decisions taken on the directions of higher-ups that were bound to gut the bank.

Official estimates till September 2017 put the amount of bad loans in national banks at Rs 7,34,000 crore. And generally, the amounts recovered from bad loans are negligible.

Let us assume that the country has lost Rs 7,34,000 crore. In order to fill that gaping hole of crores of rupees, the cost per person for every individual in the country would be Rs 5,600. Imagine, 130 crore Indian citizens would each lose Rs 5,600.

National Banks Scammed, But You Lose Money

When a national bank gets scammed, or gives bad loans, the cost for fixing those mistakes is paid by us, the taxpayers. According to a Times of India report, in order to help the ailing national banks, the government has contributed Rs 2,60,000 crore in the last 11 years. Meaning that effectively, every Indian has paid about Rs 2,000 out of their pocket.

In this way, we have all paid an average of Rs 7,600 to the national banks, thanks to their abysmal condition. Just think, 130 crore Indians each bearing the Rs 7,600 burden.

On one hand, there has been constant talk of revitalising the country, of money coming back to the common citizen. But, in reality, it’s the exact opposite – and because of the banks’ failures, we are losing money right out of our pockets.

(Originally published on Hindi Quint. Translated by Mariam Shaheen.)

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