State-owned UCO Bank Friday reported a marginal drop in its net loss at Rs 998.74 crore for third quarter ended December 31, 2018, as bad loans and provisions ballooned.

The bank had posted a net loss of Rs 1,016.43 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. Total income of the bank also came down to Rs 3,585.56 crore during October-December period of 2018-19, as against Rs 3,721.93 crore in same quarter of 2017-18, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

The Kolkata-headquartered lender witnessed worsening asset quality as the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) ballooned to 27.39 per cent of gross loans at end of December 31, 2018, from 20.64 per cent in December 2017.

Sequentially also, NPAs were higher from 25.37 percent by end of second quarter ended September of this fiscal.

In value terms, the gross NPAs or bad loans stood at Rs 31,121.79 crore as on December 31, 2018, as against Rs 25,382.40 crore a year-ago.

Net NPAs were 12.48 percent by end of third quarter as against 10.90 percent. Value-wise, the net NPAs were Rs 11,755.61 crore, lower than Rs 11,923.45 crore last year.

Thus, provisioning for bad loans during the quarter ended December 2018 was hiked to Rs 2,243.85 crore as against Rs 1,682.40 crore a year earlier.

The non-performing loan provisioning coverage ratio is 69.49 percent as on December 31, 2018, UCO Bank said.

The bank said in respect of select borrower accounts covered under the provisions of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), it was required to make an additional provision where provision as per Income Recognition and Asset Classification (IRAC) norms lower than the provision required.

"Accordingly, the bank has made additional provision of Rs 242.60 crore in respect of select borrower accounts for the quarter ended December 2018," it said.

The bank also suffered losses due to depreciation in investment, UCO Bank said. Stock of UCO Bank traded 3.60 per cent down at Rs 17.40 a piece on BSE.