Banks set higher credit target in Bihar to boost economy

Patna, May 8 (UNI) Responding to the increasing demand from all sectors, Public sector Banks in Bihar have set a higher credit disbursement target of Rs 13,335 crore in the state during the current fiscal, up from Rs 10,000 crore last year, to further boost the ongoing industrialisation programme.

This was announced here yesterday by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Finance Minister Sushil Kumar Modi after presiding over a state-level Bankers' meet.

He said after successfuly reaching nearly 88 per cent of the last year's target, amounting to Rs 8738.13 crore, the state-based public sector Banks had decided to increase their credit disbursement target for the current year to Rs 13,335 crore before further increasing it to Rs 20,000 crore expectedly during 2008-09.

Givinig a sector-wise break-up of the loans given in various sectors, the Deputy Chief Minister regretted that in spite of having several schemes, educational credit worth only Rs 178 crore were disbursed in Bihar last year.

''Keeping this in mind we have asked the Bankers here to increase the educational loan busket to Rs 1,000 crore during the current fiscal and take appropritate measures, including withdrawal of co-lateral system for those applying for loan up to Rs 400,000,'' Mr Modi said.

The Banks had also been asked to open special counters for disbursment of educational loan from every branch for at least in the next three months and advertise for them in the media accordingly.

He said in order to increase the credit portfolio in agriculture sector, the Bankers were asked to provide Kisan Credit Cards(KCC) to farmers in all the 2500-odd villages in the state with each Bank branch taking up the responsibility of providing such cards in seven sorrounding villages within a particular timeframe.

Accordingly, he said, the Banks had increased the number of KCC to be distributed this year to four million from around 2.1 million given last year.

Also stressing the need for further hiking the overall credit-deposit ratio in the state, Mr Modi, leaving for Australia on a ten-day trip next week, said several steps had already been intitiated to improve the situation as the C/D ratio in most of the districts hovered below 30 per cent against the national average of 57 per cent per annum.

To a query about the credit disbursment in minor sectors like Dairy, Fishery, Poultry and Horticulture in the state, where a total amount of Rs 15 crore had so far been distributed as credit, Mr Modi said not only the commercial Banks, even the Regional Rural Banks had been approached to improve the situation with higher credit facilities.

However, regarding the overall scenario in terms of recovery of Bank loans in Bihar, Mr Modi informed that at present it stood at around 46 per cent, far below than the national average.

UNI