The scheduled banks and financial institutions have failed to realise some Tk 656.02 billion default loans over the last 10 years from the big borrowers.
Each of these borrowers had taken loan amounting to Tk 100 million or more.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith revealed the startling information in the parliament on Wednesday.
According to the latest CIB database of Bangladesh Bank till November 2017, some 8,791 persons and organisations took Tk 100-million plus loans from the scheduled banks and financial institutions in the last 10 years, the senior minister said responding to an unstarred (written) question from independent lawmaker Rustum Ali Faraji (Pirojpur-3).
UNB says the number of defaulted persons and organisations is 1,956 while the total amount of default loans is Tk 656.02 billion and the total amount of classified loan is Tk 720.50 billion.
The Finance Minister also placed a list having names of 1956 top defaulters of all banks and financial institutions.
The top ten names are Mohammad Elias Brothers (Pvt) Ltd, Marine Vegetable Oil Ltd, Quantum Power Systems Ltd, Max Spinning Mills, Benetex Industries Ltd, Anowara Spinning Mills, Chowdhury Knitwears Ltd, Siddique Traders, Yasir Enterprise and Alppa Composite Towel Ltd.
In reply to a supplementary question from ruling party lawmaker Shamsul Haque Chowdhury, Mr Muhith said, "The number of taxpayers is 3.1 million in the country. It is a shame for the country as the number of taxpayers should be at least 16 million from among 160 million people of the country."
He said the government has a target to increase the number of taxpayers to 5.0 million by 2021.