Banks performance in HP lauded

Shimla, July 24 (UNI) Lauding the performance of the banks in Himachal Pradesh, state Chief Secretary said the banks had exceeded their targets by 120.99 per cent by disbursing loans worth Rs 2,917.80 crore of which 74.96 per cent were disbursed in private sector alone.

Inaugurating the tenth HP state-level Bankers Committee meeting here, he said the agriculture sector also recorded a growth of 54 per cent in past two years since March 2004, disbursing loans amounting Rs 801.48 crore against target of 680.10 crore.

Mr Parmar said the credit deposit ratio, which had always remained a cause of concern, also improved to 47.55 per cent.

Majority of the banks had achieved over 98 per cent of their targets under the annual credit plans due to better performance of small scale and service sectors, which accounted for Rs 1,169.25 crore, he said.

The Chief Secretary said annual credit plan for the present financial year had been pegged at Rs 2,501.92 per cent, a projection of 38.40 per cent over the original target for previous year.

Credit for agriculture had been projected at Rs 909.07 crore and total banking business registered a growth of 18.18 per cent and total deposits and advances stood at Rs 18,437 crore and Rs 8,396.62 crore respectively.

While the deposits increased by 15.04 per cent, the advances increased by 25.71 per cent, he said, adding that the number of self help groups (SHGs) in the state had increased to 33,345 of which 29,086 had been credit linked with banks.

Presiding over the meeting. United Commercial Bank Chairman V Sridhar informed that the priority sector credit as on March 2006 was 64.54 per cent, while the agriculture sector credit was 19.33 per cent.

UNI AS HS VJ ND2032