Adding to the increasing pain of the banking sector, public sector Bank of Baroda has come out with the worst set of quarterly numbers reflecting the poor asset quality of PSU banks. The bank posted a quarterly net loss of Rs 3,342 crore, the largest loss by a bank in the Indian banking history, as compared to a profit of Rs 333 crore in the same period of last year.

The loss was driven by a 463 per cent increase in provisions towards bad loans which rose from Rs 1,149 crore in the previous quarter to Rs 6,474 crore. BoB was functioning without a full-time chairman and managing director for almost 15 months after its former CMD SS Mundra was selected as the RBI Deputy Governor.

However, a tax write-back of Rs 1,118.37 crore proved to be a big help in limiting the losses. Otherwise, the loss would have been even higher.

With this, nine PSU banks have made a combined loss of Rs 11,251 crore for the December quarter. The RBI had asked PSU banks to treat some troubled accounts as official bad loans and make adequate provisions. Among the worst performers, IDBI Bank made a loss of Rs 2,184 crore, IOB Rs 1,425 crore loss and Bank of India Rs 1,505 crore.

BoB’s total income declined to Rs 11,726.95 crore in the quarter, from Rs 12,300 crore in the previous quarter.