Lending to agriculture doubled in the UPA regime : Minister

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, Aug 23 (UNI) Asserting full transparency in transfer of the shares of the State Bank of India (SBI) owned by Reserve Bank of India to the Government through an Ordinance, the Government today said the banks in the country had achieved a target of lending 40 per cent of its advances to the priority sector where agricultural sector received double amount of loans.

Replying to a debate on the SBI (Amendment) Bill, 2007 Minister of State for Finance P K Bansal said the agricultural lending which stood at 86,500 crore during 2003-04 had now surpassed 2,05,000 crores this year and the government had refixed this target to Rs 2,25,000 for 2007-08.

The Minister announced that Himachal Pradesh had become the first state in the country where each family was covered under the banking net. Under the inclusive banking scheme, the banks are required to move to the dwelling spots and open accounts to bring all the families under the banking net at an acclerated rate. The Government was now thinking of dealing with pavement dwellers, he said.

The government now had given the banks a target of covering 50 per cent of the states under this scheme by 2012, the Minister said.

Similarly, there was a three-fold increase in the lending the education loans to students for undergoing professional education in 2007. The figure which was at Rs 3,37,000 was now 9,37,379 crore.

BJP's S S Ahluwalia, however butted in to say that the banks were demanding collateral despite Finance Minister's claim that loans upto Rs 400,000 would be without any such support.

Mr Bansal said there was no ulterior motive in bringing an Ordinance except to ensure that the assurance of transfering the RBI shares to SBI as promised to Parliament was fulfilled. The M Narasimhan Committee as well as the RBI had recommended that the RBI being a regulator shall not own the shares of any bank. The money required for completing the transaction was Rs 40,000 crore and was generated from the government's own revenues without disturbing the borrowing procedures.

The Finance Minister had announced the whole matter in the Budget and Parliament had approved the transfer of money for the purpose and the whole process was in accorance with SEBI guidelines.

Had an ordinance not been promulgated, it would have delayed the process by one more fiscal. It took the government three months to mop up resources for the transfer.

UNI

For Daily Alerts
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
X