Indian state-run lender IDBI Bank Ltd posted a seventh straight quarterly loss on Tuesday, sending its shares lower, as the bank continues to be plagued by the highest bad loan ratio in the sector.

Indian banks have seen a surge in non-performing loans that hit a record $150 billion at the end of March, with 21 lenders, including IDBI, accounting for 86 percent of the pile.

IDBI's gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans were 30.78 percent at the end of June, compared with 27.95 percent in the preceding quarter, and 24.11 percent a year earlier. Provision for bad loans jumped 145 percent to 46.03 billion rupees ($658.51 million).

The bank had in March outlined measures to curb the pile-up of soured assets, that included a reduction in lending to corporates and shutting down unprofitable branches.

Net loss widened to 24.10 billion rupees for the three months ended June 30, compared with aloss of 8.53 billion rupees a year earlier, the Mumbai-based bank said https://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/b23826c5-b9ab-47d3-8781-abf74a51d9b7.PDF.

Shares of the bank were trading marginally lower, after falling as much as 3.7 percent immediately after the results.

The federal cabinet earlier this month approved a planned takeover of IDBI Bank by state-run Life Insurance Corp of India through sale of new shares in the lender, to help IDBI get capital to set aside bad loans and grow its lending.

($1 = 69.9000 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chris Thomas and Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)

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