Patna, (Bihar Times): Urging the banks to help combat
poverty chief minister Nitish Kumar came down heavily
on them for ignoring the poor, whose number continues
to grow in the state. Against the central government
figure of 65 lakh families Bihar actually has 1.21
crore families living below the poverty line (BPL) yet
the banks are reluctant to come to their rescue, he
said.
Addressing 24th State-Level Bankers’ Committee meet
the chief minister said that he had with him 17
banking related written complaint, which he had
received at the Janata Darbar last Monday. He said
that he was giving these applications to the SLBC
hoping that it would examine them and take proper
action.
Nitish delved deep into corruption and graft culture
in the banks. Though the weaker-section of the society
is in dire need of credit the banks are denying them.
The Indira Awas Yojana beneficiaries are now automatic
selected yet bribes are demanded from them. This is
done outside the bank branches.
Stressing that human resources is the state’s prize
asset the chief minister gave special attention on the
educational loan and was not impressed by the
declaration of the chairman of the SLBC that the banks
in the state have disbursed Rs 281.70 crore to 10,224
beneficiaries as education loan during 2007-08. A year
earlier Rs 174.51 crore was disbursed to 6,328
beneficiaries.
Nitish, however, said that poor children are being
denied educational loan because of lack of sensitivity
of the banks. To buttress his point he sighted the
example of reluctance of banks to open account for
depositing Rs 2,000 in the name of Class-IX girl
students under Balika Cycle Yojana and for Rs 700 for
middle school girl students under the Balika Poshak
Yojana.
The chief minister urged the banks to follow the
agriculture road map approved by his cabinet. Its
purpose is to double the farm production in the state
in the next four or five years.
The deputy chief minister and finance minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, said that contrary to the general perception loan recovery rate among the poor is better than the rich. But the banks are still reluctant in giving loans to the poor. He advised the bankers to concentrate more in the rural areas.
He held the poor branch level monitoring for the SLBC
member banks responsible for the failure to realize
the annual credit plan target for 2007-08. Against the
target of Rs 13,100 crore the actual annual credit
plan (ACP) realization in 2007-08 stood at Rs 10,762
crore which is 82.16 per cent. Conceding that the
loan disbursement has increased by Rs 4,996 crore over
the past two years, he expressed his disappointment at
the SLBC data which show that in 16 out of 38
districts the Credit-Deposit ratio is below 30 per
cent. He also asked bankers to help self-help groups.
The chairman of the State-Level Bank Committee and
CGM, State Bank of India, Patna Circle, A Krishna
Kumar, acknowledged that though the banks have
improved their performance they have a long way to go.
They could not tap the state’s full agricultural
potential and promised a more pro-active role. He
accepted that the banks were committed to the SC Jha
panel suggestion for improving financial services in
Bihar.
RBI Regional Director, K K Vohra, said that banks were
in the process of evolving a common application form
for educational loans. He asked the banks to follow
the 2007 RBI guideline for loan disbursal during the
flood season.
