PSU defaults and moral hazards

How long will the banking system bank on government ownership?

- TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY

One could hear a collective sigh of relief from the Indian banking sector when the bankers learnt that the government was considering a bailout for the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), both Navratna public sector undertakings (PSUs). The telecom and steel ministries have been discussing this with the finance ministry.

A committee of secretaries from the departments of expenditure, investment and public asset management, and telecommunications will take the final call on MTNL's debt.

On September 25, the State Bank of India (SBI) downgraded its MTNL exposure as a non-performing asset (NPA) due to non-payment of instalments and interest since June 30. Ahead of that, in mid-September, Punjab National Bank (PNB) had joined others to downgrade the account.

For SBI, the total outstanding on the MTNL loan account was ₹325.52 crore as of September 30, according to the bank's letter dated October 1, shared by the company with the stock exchanges. Going by MTNL's September 13 filing with stock exchanges, the outstanding amount for PNB is ₹441 crore and the overdue at least ₹46 crore.

Ahead of that, MTNL disclosed that it had defaulted on ₹519 crore in repayments to several state-owned lenders between June and August 2024.

MTNL is a listed entity, owned 56.25 per cent by the government of India and 13.12 per cent by the Life Insurance Corporation of India. In March 2024, it had a ₹23,663 crore hole in its net worth, after posting a net loss of ₹3,302 crore in FY24 on top of the ₹2,915.1 crore loss posted in FY23.