ISLAMABAD, April 29: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar informed the Senate on Tuesday that government banks and financial institutions had written off loans totalling Rs15 billion over the past three years.

Interestingly, more than half of the amount -- Rs8,576.129 million -- payable by industrial, trading and agricultural sectors was written off in 2007.

The industrial sector was the major beneficiary which got Rs8,576.129 million written off with the total loan being Rs14,919.351 million.

Although the paper presented by the finance minister did not contain names, it is believed that many politicians and business tycoons were among the beneficiaries.

In the industrial sector, Rs1,982.714 million payable by 230 borrowers was written off in 2005. They included only 23 concerns which had borrowed less than half a million rupees. In 2006, 204 borrowers got loans of Rs2,520.065 million written off. In 2007, the number of beneficiaries from the industrial sector dropped to 194, but loans written off totalled Rs4,073.350 million.

In the trading sector, loans amounting to Rs3,308.220 million were written off from 2005 to 2007. An amount of Rs748.269 million was written off in 2005 and Rs823.451 million and Rs1736.500 million in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

In the agricultural sector, loans to the tune of Rs3,035.002 million were written off over the past three years -- Rs460.475 million in 2005, Rs541.697 million in 2006 and Rs2032.830 million in 2007.

Mr Dar informed the Senate that a comprehensive law -- financial crimes act -- was being prepared to cover all aspects of counterfeiting of currency notes and other related crimes.

He said the State Bank had taken a number of steps to check circulation of counterfeit currency notes. He said that a monitoring cell was being set up at the SBP to monitor the disposal of cases of counterfeiting. The officials of law-enforcement agencies and banks were being trained by the Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC) in batches.

The finance minister said that anti-counterfeiting equipment had been installed at branches of commercial banks and the State Bank. He said the PSPC had recently incorporated security features in new currency notes, comparable to those available in the recently issued euro notes.

Mr Dar said that banks had been issued instructions not to harass innocent people possessing fake currency notes.