Country's largest bank State Bank of India, SBI, today posted nearly 200-time increase in profit at over 4,000 crore rupees for January-March period. This is the highest ever in
its history and is on the back of a sharp fall in provisioning for bad loans.

Terming its performance as “blockbuster” State Bank of India's (SBI) Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told reporters in Kolkata that it is the highest ever quarterly profit for the lender. He added that SBI's net profit of over 11,707 crore rupees for the entire fiscal ended March, 2012 is the third highest profit of any corporation in India.Chaudhari said the total provisioning for bad loans for the quarter was down to 5,547 crore rupees from 6,059 crore rupees in the comparable period.

In the period under review, the loss from sale of equity stood at 26 crore rupees as against Rs 335 crore in the previous corresponding quarter.
Buoyed by the stellar performance, bank shares rose to Rs 1,942, up 5.08 per cent on the BSE.