Country's largest lender State bank of India has said that its exposure to the ailing airline Kingfisher has become a bad loan, or in banking parlance a non performing asset.

"Kingfisher has been unable to pay their dues. And since December 31 it has become a NPA," said SBI's chairman Pratip Chaudhuri. The outstanding exposure of the bank is Rs 1,580 crore and bank will now have to make a provisioning of around Rs 250 -280 crore, he added/

The account slipped into a NPA after one of the oil companies had invoked guarantees around Rs 100 crore. "The airline had not been able to pay dues and since the 90 day period has been over it automatically turns into a bad loan," said Chaudhuri.

Kingfisher Airlines has an outstanding loan of around Rs 6,419 crore and banks have indicated that there are no plans to carry out a second round of debt restructuring of the ailing airline.

The other banks which have exposure in the airline are IDBI Bank (Rs 727.63 crore), Punjab National Bank (Rs 710.33 crore), Bank of India (Rs 575.27 crore) and BoB (Rs 537.51 crore).

Of the total outstanding of Rs 6,419.60 crore, Rs 750.10 crore has been converted into cumulative redeemable preference shares and Rs 553.10 crore as non-convertible cumulative redeemable preference shares to be redeemed after 12 years.

The other lenders which have provided funds to the airlines include ICICI Bank, Central Bank of India, United Bank of India, UCO Bank, and Corporation Bank.

If the account is termed as an NPA, it will be referred to the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) cell, which will have to take a call on the way forward.

As of now there are three categories of NPA, a substandard asset would be one, which has remained NPA for a period of less than or equal to 12 months. An asset would be classified as doubtful if it has remained in the sub-standard category for a period of 12 months.

A loss asset is one where loss has been identified by the bank or inter-nal or external auditors or the RBI inspection but the amount has not been written off wholly. (PTI)