Big wilful defaulters owed Rs 15,171.91 crore in loans to Punjab National Bank at the end of March this year.

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The data from the bank relates to those wilful defaulters who have taken loans of Rs 25 lakh and above but did not repay despite the ability to do so.

The liability on such defaulters rose by 1.8 per cent from Rs 14,904.65 crore in February.

The public sector lender has been putting out the names of wilful defaulters and firms since June 2017. Within ten months, these defaults have grown by 28 per cent, from Rs 11,879.74 crore.

The major wilful defaulters include chemical manufacturer Kudos Chemie Ltd -- Rs 1,301.82 crore; Kingfisher Airlines -- Rs 597.44 crore; VMC Systems Ltd -- Rs 296.08 crore; Arvind Remedies -- Rs 158.16 crore and Indu Projects Ltd Rs 102.83 crore.

All these companies were provided loans by PNB as part of consortium lending.

Others in the list include Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery -- Rs 899.70 crore; Zoom Developers -- Rs 410.18 crore; Jas infrastructure and Power Ltd -- Rs 410.96 crore; Apple Industries -- Rs 248.34 crore; Nafed -- Rs 224.24 crore; MBS Jewellers Pvt Ltd -- Rs 266.17 crore and S Kumar Nationwide -- Rs 146.82 crore.

For third quarter ended December 31 of last fiscal, 2017-18, PNB's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans stood at Rs 57,519.41 crore or 12.11 per cent of the gross advances.

In 2016-17, the gross NPAs were 12.53 per cent of the gross advances at Rs 55,370.45 crore.

Hit by the over Rs 13,000 crore fraud, PNB has been trying to clean up its books. Multiple agencies are investigating the case and working on bringing back the alleged wrongdoers billionaire diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Gems, who have fled the country.