NEW DELHI: Most of the PSU bank stocks were trading down during the early trade on Monday on reports that non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans in the banking sector are set to shoot up by at least Rs 8,000 crore as advances to the scam-hit Gitanjali Gems group have turned bad during the quarter ended March 31. Banks will have to make provisioning of Rs 8,000 crore for Gitanjali alone.

The Nifty PSU Bank index was trading 0.41 per cent down at 2,929 around 10:30 am (IST) with Allahabad Bank (down 1.04 per cent) as the top drag.

Union Bank of India (down 0.86 per cent), Oriental Bank of Commerce (down 0.72 per cent), Andhra Bank (down 0.70 per cent), Syndicate Bank (down 0.69 per cent), Bank of Baroda (down 0.63 per cent), Bank of India (down 0.50 per cent), State Bank of India (down 0.34 per cent), Punjab National Bank (down 0.20 per cent), Indian Bank (down 0.12 per cent) and Canara Bank (down 0.11 per cent) were also in the red. IDBI Bank (up 0.28 per cent) was the only stock that was in the green in the PSU bank index around that time.

Equity benchmarks pared some losses on buying in pharma and FMCG stocks. The NSE Nifty50 index was down 10 points at 10,471, while the BSE Sensex was 49 points down at 34,143. Among the 50 stocks in the Nifty index, 25 were trading in the green, while 25 were in the red.

Cipla, Grasim Industries, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Lupin and Sun Pharma were among the top gainers in the Nifty index. However, Infosys, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, GAIL and Eicher Motors were among the top losers in the Nifty pack.