PATNA: Union Finance Minister (FM) P Chidambaram had a clear message for to bankers in Bihar at the special state-level bankers committee (SLBC) meeting here on Wednesday.
"Follow the banker's dharma. A banker's dharma is to lend money," he said giving a stern message to banks to close down the branches that did not lendmoney.
After a gruelling two-hour session listening to the arguments and counter-arguments of bankers and Bihar government officials on low credit flow in Bihar, the FM asked to bankers to increase the credit flow within a specified time-frame.
"My announcements here will be followed with specific orders which will reach you later. Start working on them now," the FM told the bankers. Chidambaram asked bankers to meet the Agriculture Credit Plan target of Rs 10,000 crore at any cost.
"No excuse will be accepted on this account and every branch has to pitch in," he said while winding up the meeting which was attended by CM Nitish Kumar, Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, top executives of the banking sector and state government officials.
The FM also expressed surprise at the low target the commercial banks had set for themselves in distribution of Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) -- 1.46 lakh --despite the huge network of branches...
It roughly works out to 50 KCCs per branch. This is unacceptable," he said directing SBI and RBI officials to get together and revise the target to three lakh for commercial banks and send him the proposal the by first week of July.
Irked by complaints of the state government that there were about 700 bank branches with zero-credit track record, the FM directed chairmen and executive directors of commercial banks to visit rural branches at least once a month for the next three months.
source:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1669528,curpg-2.cms
