Various agencies of the Indian government have confiscated, or taken over, fixed properties worth 230,000 crore Indian Rupees (approximately 33 billion U.S. dollars) belonging to state-run banks' non-performing assets (NPAs) over the last three financial years, the country's Junior Finance Minister Anurag Thakur told the parliament, according to media reports on Tuesday.

A total of 170,000 such properties were confiscated, or taken over, by the center government, said the minister in a reply to a question raised in the Parliament's Lower House Lok Sabha.

This assumes significance in the wake of several banks in the country having seen a spike in bad debts, which is estimated to be around 940,000 crore Indian Rupees (approximately 134 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of March 2019.

Even as the slowdown accentuated the problem, the country's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), forced the lenders (banks) to recognise the NPAs in their account books, reported The Times of India.

These properties have been confiscated through the "Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (SARFAESI Act), the Debts Recovery Tribunals (DRTs), and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and a few others legislations.