The RBI's financial stability report indicates that the NPA picture for the system as a whole in the worst-case scenario of an 8.9 percent GDP contraction, will mean NPLs of 14.7-15 percent. But for public sector banks, even the base case with a contraction of 4-5 percent in GDP can mean NPA of 14-15 percent.

Speaking about NPAs, Krishnan Sitaraman, Senior Director of Crisil Ratings said, “It is too early for us to take a call because we don’t have a sense of what kind of restructuring mechanism will be announced the next fiscal and how the economic growth will pan out. But we do expect NPAs to remain at elevated levels, maybe 12-13 percent, but that is an initial estimate at this point in time.”

He further added that retail NPAs could double due to salary cuts and disturbance in cash flows. “Retail side, we are expecting more than doubling of the NPA levels because of the salary cuts and job losses which could pan out. On the salaried segment as well as on the self-employed segment we expect their cash flows to be impacted which will result in NPAs going up,” he said.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Saswata Guha, Director-Financial Institutions of Fitch Ratings India said, “We did stress test scenario, we did 2 scenarios. One was moderate stress which is quite close to what RBIs base case scenario is wherein we projected the NPL ratio to about 13 percent odd over the next 2 years. Why we did over the next 2 years is primarily because of the ongoing moratorium in place and so there is very limited clarity in terms of whether we are likely to see more forbearances.”

On the PSU banks, Guha said, “PSU banks, we are looking at another 300-400 basis points higher than the system.”