The banking and infrastructure sectors are the two main pillars of every economy. A well organized banking sector and a vibrant sustainable manufacturing sector are a must for a country's economic growth.  Growth in these two sectors depends heavily on each other, hence stress in one sector inevitably affects the other, often companies do not earn enough to pay interest on bank loans within a prescribed period (90 days as per the RBI). These loans transform into non performing assets (NPAs), one of the sectors that contributed most to NPAs is the infrastructure sector. In a survey, the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) described infrastructure as a sector that could wipe out  entire profits from banks reported in the 2016-17 financial year, in the event of severe stress in servicing loans. In the past 14 months in a row, credit growth to the infrastructure sector has remained negative - as of April 2016. Stressed assets include NPAs and projects that have the potential to become NPAs, infrastructure is a key pillar of the Indian economy and includes highways, bridges , dams, urban infrastructure, and so on. The stress in this sector is largely driven by land acquisition problems, delays in service transitions, poor performance of contractors and delays in the processing of claims, with the majority of disputes caused by Engineering Procurement and Construction stressed assets having become a drag on the infrastructure sector with the non-recovery of loans from the sector hitting the completion of ongoing projects. In this paper we will study the correlation between NPAs and SBI NPAs in the infrastructure sector, also the factors behind the stress in the infrastructure sector, as well as how much the infrastructure sector has influenced the banking  sector.

KEYWORDS: NPAs, Stress Assets, Infrastructure Sector, SBI.