PSBs, foreign banks hit by bad loans: RBI

But the RBI report said that state-run and foreign lenders' recovery performance was better than their private sector counterparts which relied more on write-offs than recovery.

The report said among banks, new private sector lenders relied more on writing off NPAs as a measure to contain their NPA levels. Loans worth Rs 1,800 crore were written off by new private sector banks in FY12, according to the report.

To strengthen the NPA management framework of the banks, the RBI its in 2012-13 Monetary Policy has advised the banks to put in place a robust mechanism for early detection of signs of distress, and implement measures to preserve the economic value of assets.

To arrest the steep rise in bad loans, the RBI in the report has directed banks to share information on credit exposure among themselves on real-time basis and warned of punitive measures in case of failures, including penalties.

The directive comes at a time when banks are seeing a surge in corporate debt restructuring cases and bad loans.

The RBI on October 30 had asked banks to set aside more money for every standard restructured loan - from 2 per cent in the past to 2.75 per cent.

So far in 2012, the number of loan recasts rose to 101 cases, according to information available with the CDR cell.

The CDR cases include the Rs 31,000 crore of Air India and Rs 1.9 lakh crore of state-run discoms.

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