NEW DELHI: Punjab National Bank ( PNB ), the country’s second-largest public sector lender , has impounded passports of 150 wilful loan defaulters apart from lodging 37 FIRs against those who are not repaying loans as part of its recovery drive.

“The bank has already declared 1,084 wilful defaulters and published photos of 260 such defaulters in newspapers,” the bank said in a statement.

In an interview, PNB MD Sunil Mehta had told TOI that the lender, which has been hit by an over Rs 14,000-crore fraud by diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi , is banking heavily on recovery of loans to improve its financial position.

The state-run bank also plans to leverage data for loan recovery and risk management through a tie-up with an external agency.

PNB is seeking to access contact details of defaulters, who have good credit record with other lenders and chase the errant borrowers. “This partnership is a part of the larger strategy to deploy technology to strengthen internal systems. This partnership will not only help the bank with loan recovery but will also help identify and automate profitable lending strategies and minimize credit and fraud risk,” the statement said.

It claimed that two special one-time settlement ( OTS ) schemes have already helped accelerate recovery of bad debt, with the average rising from 70,000-80,000 NPA accounts a year to 2.25 lakh accounts during the last 10 months. These schemes apply to small NPA accounts, helping defaulters come out of debt.

