Lenders have approved recast of 44 cases of Rs 50,210 crore through the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) mechanism in the first nine months of FY15. In December, the number of restructured cases stood at nine with a total loan value of Rs 9,360 crore.

In April-December period, bankers referred 24 cases of Rs 21,770 crore, while four cases worth Rs 3,080 crore were referred in December.

Though the pace of referral and approvals appeared somewhat muted, bankers say they expect referrals to pick up in Q4FY15 as banks would not be able to classify restructured assets as standard from FY16. In the nine months to December 2013, the cell had received recast requests for 84 cases worth Rs 1.09 lakh crore and had approved 42 cases of Rs 60,285 crore.

Bankers and CDR officials say the fall in referrals was a result of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines on early detection of stressed assets where it had directed banks in February last year to classify loans on the basis of the number of days interest repayments payments were overdue.

In December, Unity Infraprojects (Rs 2,740 crore) and Kudos Chemie (Rs 1,900 crore) cases were approved. On other hand, loans to companies like Loha Ispaat (Rs 1,390 crore) and Tulsyan NEC (Rs 750 crore) were referred for recast in December.

The number of cases referred to the CDR cell had fallen since the June quarter (April-June FY15) with only two cases referred against 28 referred in the same period last year. Subsequently, the amount of loans referred in Q2FY15 stood at Rs 13,300 crore compared with Rs 24,859 crore in the same period last year.

RBI guidelines mandated joint lenders’ forums (JLFs) to find a corrective action plan (CAP) for the company that has repayment overdues of more than 60 days. Earlier, the lead banker in a consortium used to refer accounts to the CDR cell, however, at present JLF decides on restructuring the account as a CAP and refers the account to CDR cell after preliminary viability study.