Priority for loans needs clarity, ZP CEO tells bankers

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Sep 25, 2018: Poor performance of banks in lending loans to priority and other sectors was criticized at the quarterly meeting on total banking business in Dakshina Kannada district on Sept 24, Monday.

DK ZP CEO Dr Selvamani expressed dissatisfaction at banks for lending only Rs 255.22 crore under other priority sector as against the target of Rs 3,766.06 crore (6.78 % progress in the first quarter). The disbursement under agriculture sector for the quarter ended on June 30, 2018 was Rs 977.79 crore and the progress was 19.82% when compared with the annual target of Rs 4932.82 crore.

“If the achievement during first quarter is mere 19.82 % then how will the target be achieved within the end of financial year?” the CEO asked.

“The agriculture loan should have been released during the first and second quarter as not much agricultural activities takes place during the third and the fourth quarter,’’ he said and added that loans can also be disbursed for housing and education sector also.

District Lead Bank Manager Francis said the total disbursement in district was Rs 4595.28 crore during the first quarter of 2018-19, achieving 28.72 % of the yearly target of Rs 16,000 crore. The disbursement under Micro small and medium enterprises for the quarter ended on June 30 was Rs 763.40 crore against the yearly target of Rs 3222.97 crore.

Reserve Bank of India AGM P K Patnaik expressed concern over the low CD (credit-deposit) of four banks including Vijaya Bank, Corporation Bank, State Bank of India and Canara Bank.

The banks should gear up to improve the CD ratio and the review of these banks will be conducted separately in the next meeting. If the CD ratio of banks in the district are below 40%, then a sub committee should be constituted to take corrective measures. The CD ratio of the banks in the district stood at 62.47% showing an increase of 6.66% in comparison to the corresponding CD ratio of 55.81 % in June 30, 2017, he said.

The Lead Bank Manager said the total branches in the district as on June 30, 2018 was 647. The deposits stood at Rs 42499.35 crore indicating a growth of 7.94% and the advances stood at Rs 26550.56 crore. The total business as on June 30 is Rs 69,049.91 crore.

Selvamani directed the officials to clear all the 900 applications under Prime Minister Awaz Yojana before September 30.
Nabard AGM Ramesh said that 21% of area under arecanut and black pepper cultivation in the district had been covered under weather based crop insurance scheme. Initially there was poor response to the scheme but on realising its importance there was a surge in the enrolment of farmers for the scheme.

An official from DKMUL raised the issue of technical glitches in seeding Aadhaar with bank accounts, which was preventing milk producers in availing subsidy amount from the government. The saving accounts of farmers was not being linked to Aadhaar due to some problem.

“Bank officials had issued a letter declaring that the account was linked with Aadhaar but when the DKMUL attempted to transfer the amount to saving accounts of farmers, they had received message on failure to link Aadhaar,” he said.
Officials attendance poor :
The attendance of officials from departments needed to give information and figures at the meeting of District Consultative Committee and District Level Review Committee for Banking Development here on Sept 24,  Monday were irresponsibly absent.

A case in point was the absence of officials from the Department of Horticulture, Ambedkar Development Corporation and D. Devarj Urs Development Corporation. Some officials who had attended the meeting did not have the required information on hand.

When the meeting wanted information from State Bank of India, there was none to provide comprehensive information.  Some banks had not bothered to link the Aadhaar numbers of dairy farmers to their bank accounts properly to enable the farmers to get benefits.