SIDBI targets credit portfolio of Rs 18,000 cr this fiscal

Kochi, Jul 21 (UNI) The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is targeting a credit portfolio of Rs 18,000 crore, of which micro finance portfolio will be Rs 750 crore, during this financial year, its General Manager (south zone) K M Nair said today.

Speaking at a vendors meet organised here, Mr Nair said the bank was also targeting a gross profit of Rs 1,000 crore in this financial year.

During the last financial year, Rs 11,869 crore was sanctioned in loans, of which Rs 9075 crore was disbursed. Kerala was sanctioned Rs 522 crore and Rs 482 crore was disbursed.

Mr Nair said to expand its outreach in Kerala, SIDBI will open a branch at Kozhikode. The bank currently has a branch office at Kochi.

He said during the first quarter of the this financial year, the Kochi branch office had sanctioned Rs 57.91 crore and disbursed Rs 62.12 crore compared to sanctions of Rs 25 crore and disbursals of Rs 29.46 crore during the same period last year.

The overall growth was mainly due to the bank's Receivable Finance Scheme (RFS), which was intended to tide over the short term liquidity of the SSI suppliers of large industries.

As of now, 101 suppliers of SSI units were enjoying the facility, mainly the suppliers of leading tyre manufacturing companies like Apollo and J K Ceat, he said.

Commenting about the initiatives of the bank, Mr Nair said SIDBI had developed expertise in quick appraisal of credit proposals. As part of the initiatives to empower the SME sector, a fund of Rs 10,000 crore was operationalised in collaboration with the Central Government.

Interests for loans were kept between 6.5 to 9.5 per cent under the fund. An SME growth fund of Rs 500 crore had been created for providing venture capital support to SMEs in select sectors like IT, Food Processing, Biotech and Pharmaceuticals, he said.

A World Bank Line of Credit of USD 120 million had been lined up for term loan and technical assistance to export-oriented SMEs.

SIDBI had signed MoUs with ten state financial corporations to help strengthen their organisational capabilities.

A specialized rural industries programme had been initiated to extend hand holding support for promotion and development of rural industries. In Kerala, this programme had been taken up in Ernakulam, Palakkad, Wayanad and Thrissur districts, he said.

The bank had also launched a credit guarantee fund trust scheme for facilitating collateral free loans to SSIs.

Small and medium enterprises rating agencies is a new initiative of SIDBI to provide SME ratings that are comprehensive, transparent and reliable to enable the units to get hassle free credit from banks.

UNI ARC ROY NVN2023