Kolkata, Aug 9 (IANS) Public sector lender UCO Bank on Tuesday reported a net loss of Rs 440.57 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2016 as compared to Rs 256.70 crore in the year-ago period.
"The loss was on account of higher provisioning and lower operating profit," said Managing Director and CEO R.K. Takkar.
He said the bank's fresh slippages in the quarter under review stood at about Rs 3,116 crore, up from Rs 1,252 crore in the corresponding period in 2015.
In the quarter, gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank were at Rs 22,597.70 crore, up by nearly 107.42 per cent from Rs 10,894.41 crore in the corresponding quarter in 2015.
The bank's net NPA ratio in the June quarter rose to 10.04 per cent as against 4.53 per cent in the year-ago period.
Its gross NPA as a percentage of total loans rose to 17.19 per cent in the first quarter from 7.30 per cent a year ago.
The bank's operating profit fell 30.25 per cent year-on-year to Rs 810.16 crore during June quarter from Rs 1,161.46 crore for the corresponding period in 2015.
On the back of a huge surge in bad loans, the public sector lender's provisions and contingencies rose by 63.77 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1,250.50 crore for the first quarter this fiscal from Rs 763.56 crore for the corresponding period last fiscal.
About 50 per cent of the fresh slippages came from large corporate accounts, he said.
"However, we saw good recovery from small accounts during this quarter," he said, adding during the June quarter recovery stood at Rs 1,400 crore, up from Rs 360 crore in the year-ago period.
The bank has already put NPAs with a total outstanding amount of Rs 1,767 crore on sale to clean up its balance sheet and invited Expression of Interest (EOI) from asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), banks, financial institutions and eligible NBFCs for the proposed sale of its 22 NPA accounts.
Takkar has earlier said his bank was focussing on "pro-active management of asset health" through close monitoring of loan accounts and going all out to recover bad loans to bring down NPA level.
It was planning to issue shares on a preferential basis to the government for a capital infusion of Rs 775 crore. Its capital adequacy ratio under Basel III rules stood at 9.90 per cent at the end of June quarter.
