State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, on Thursday reported a more than 83% jump in fourth-quarter profit, led by a sharp drop in provisions on bad loans and healthy credit growth.

Net profit was at a record 166.95 billion rupees ($2.04 billion)for the quarter ended March 31, compared with 91.14 billion rupees a year earlier, the lender said in an exchange filing.

Provisions and contingencies more than halved to 33.16 billion rupees amid an improvement in asset quality.

The lender's gross non-performing assets (NPA) ratio -- a key metric of asset quality -- fell to 2.78% from 3.14% in the previous quarter and 3.97% a year ago. The net NPA ratio improved to 0.67% from 0.77% in the prior three months.

Lenders have cleaned up their balance sheets over the past few years following better credit growth, bad loan recoveries and write-offs.

SBI's shares fell 0.7% to 582.2 rupees after the earnings. The shares had risen as much as 1.3% early in the session.

They have fallen 5.1% so far this year, compared to a 2.2% gain in the Nifty Bank Index. ($1 = 81.7800 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Siddhi Nayak in Mumbai; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil)