Port Blair, Sept 06: The Direct Benefit Transfer scheme to enable the customers to get their LPG subsidy and other benefits under different government schemes directly in to their bank accounts will be implemented in North and Middle Andaman from October 1st this year. Addressing the Union Territory level Bankers committee meeting held at Megapode resort at Port Blair this morning, A K Bhattacharya, the General Manager of Reserve Bank of India, Kolkata informed that the RBI directed all the banks to open the accounts of all Aadhar enabled customers to prepare for the implementation of the programme. He expressed concern that so far the banks got the list of only 3000 Aadhar enabled customers for the scheme. Stressing the need for expediting the process of opening accounts for Aadhar enabled customers, he called upon all the banks to take immediate steps to open the accounts of all the LPG consumers without waiting for the list of Aadhar enabled customers to avoid the delay in the process of opening accounts and the Aadhar details would be incorporated in to their accounts as and when they are received. He also appealed to the administration to extend their cooperation to supply the complete list of the people issued with the Aadhar cards to enable the banks to implement the Government of India’s flag ship programme DBT during the month of October as planned.
He also expressed concern over the poor Credit Deployment(CD) ratio in the islands and pointed out that CD ratio dropped down by 0.38 percent during the last quarter. He appealed to all the bankers to take concerted efforts to improve the CD ratio in the islands by providing more loans to the beneficiaries in farm sector and Medium , Small and Micro enterprises. He also reiterated that the banks should take collaborative efforts for financial inclusion programme in the islands so as to cover each and every village, irrespective of its population with the banking facilities. He said the government of India decided to cover all the villages in the country with banking facilities such as bank with ATM or Mobile banking by March 31st of next year. He appealed to the bankers to appoint Business correspondents to provide the banking facilities in the rural areas, if the mobile banking or branch services are not available in those areas.
Earlier, addressing the members the Secretary for Agriculture , Fisheries and Animal Husbandary, Onit Panyang appealed to the bankers to disburse more loans to the beneficiaries in the rural areas in the farm sector and other key sectors to contribute the economic development of the islands. He also emphasised that the bankers should change their discouraging attitude towards the poor people approaching the banks for loans and guide them how to avail financial benefits under different government programmes. He also advised them to launch the intensive recovery drive in the selected areas to recover the amount from the defaulters and he assured that the administration would provide its full support to conduct such recovery drives effectively.
He also pointed out that the beneficiaries of boat loans got suffered due to non delivery of boats in fixed time period of nine months and recovery of loans started after the moratorium period. He said the boats ordered for construction from mainland have not been delivered even after 18 months. He reiterated that efforts should be taken to develop the boat building Yard in the islands itself to find permanent solution to such problems faced by the beneficiaries.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chariman of the UT level Bankers Committee and SBI Bengal Circle’s Dy General Manager, Pradip Kumar Nag stressed the need for improving the Credit Deployment ratio by disburisng more loands in the identified key sectors of Tourism, Fisheries and Infrastructure development. He also suggested that the line departments can evolve the bankable schemes to enable the beneficiaries get the benefits in hassle free manner. He also called upon the bankers to intensify their efforts for the financial inclusion and financial literacy programmes in the islands.
He further revealed that the SBI recently launched its modern E corner at Port Blair main Branch with advanced facilities such as Self service kiosk for making entries in the pass book and other banking transactions, Money deposit machine, ATMs and Coin Vending machines and its services are available for 24 hours throughout out the week. It has been planned to install two more E corners in the Islands, besides opening a new branch in Dollygunj, he told.
The General Manager of NABARD, G Tarai informed that NABARD makes all out efforts to promote Self Help Groups(SHG) across the islands in collaboration with the A & N Staate cooperative bank and NGOs. He revealed that there are 4900 SHGs have been set up all over the islands, of which 1800 are credit linked. Besides, NABARD guided the people through financial literacy programme and encouraged them to form Joint Liability Groups(JLG) comprising four or five members, so that they can start their self employment venture by availing of loans from the banks. He appealed to the banks to extend their cooperation to make the SHGs and JLGs function effectively by offering financial assistance to them and thereby empowering them at grass root level.
He also pointed out that the A & N State Cooperative bank has already issued 3493 Kissan Credit cards to the farmers, where as the SBI issued only 803 cards and mere 71 cards by the Syndicate bank. In this context, he appealed to the public sector banks to concentrate more on improving the status of issue of kissan credit cards to the farmers to pave way for the rural development in a large scale.
The Regional Manager of SBI, Ravindra Kumar Trivedi also spoke on the occasion. A number of Managers and officers from all the banks in the islands and the Senior officers from the line departments of the administration attended the meet. (PIB)
