Private sector lenders have laid ambitious plans of widening their loan books in the FY12-13. However the same couldn't be said about PSU banks which are under heavy burden of restructuring loans and towering NPAs.

The top three private banks, ICICI Bank Ltd, HDFC Bank Ltd, and Axis Bank Ltd expect their loan disbursals to grow way faster than the target set by regulator, Reserve Bank of India for all banks in this fiscal. The apex bank has set a target of 17% credit disbursal for all lenders this year.

Rising demands from corporate and individual segment would be instrumental in achieving those targets.

ICICI Bank has a projection of 20% credit growth backed mainly by increasing demand for home and car loans in individual category.

HDFC Bank, too sees a credit growth of 20-22% followed by Axis Bank having similar hopes. All these lenders are bidding big on the retail banking segment and on working capital loans.

The public sector banks on the other hand are projecting lower growth in loan disbursals, with IDBI Bank Ltd projecting 2% below the RBI's projections. Bank of Baroda (BoB) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) see 18-19% growth.

The ever increasing NPAs are adding troubles to the woes of public banks, and that's the reason the banks are projections are more humble. M.D. Mallaya, MD, Chairman, BoB lays emphasis on "asset-liability management" and "credit monitoring".

The PSUs will forgo some opportunity this year and the blame can be fixed on ever increasing NPAs and huge structuring loans tendered in the last quarter. In fact, in many cases the Q4 restructuring loans were larger than the previous quarters combined.

PNB structured Rs.8601 crore in the quarter out of Rs, 15,334 crore for the year; while for BoB the number were Rs. 5281 crore out of Rs. 8500 crore.