Banks in Bihar extend record credit in last fiscal

Patna, May 4: Public sector Banks in Bihar have disbursed an all time high credits of Rs 8738.13 crore in the last fiscal year, an increase of over Rs 2600 crore compared to previous year.

Informing this Bihar Deputy Chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who also holds the finance portfolio, said here last night that against the annual target of Rs 10,000 crore of credit disbursement, the Banks in 2006-07 achieved a commendable task of about 87.37 per cent of the target, which was nearly 20 per cent up than the previous year (Rs 6,055.42 crore) in terms of growth.

He said of the total credit disbursement, the maximum amount was lent out to the agriculture sector followed by several other priority and non-priority sectors.

In the agricultural sector, Mr Modi said, Rs 2,985.40 crore were given out to farmers as both long-term and short-term credits, which was about Rs 1,000 crore higher than the previous year following upswing in the demand.

Hailing the performance of the state based public sector and other Banks, Mr Modi, however, hoped that more credit loans would be given in the coming years to keep tempo of steady growth in different sectors of the state.

UNI