GUWAHATI, Feb 7: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has asked RBI Governor D Subbarao to consider a system of incentives and disincentives for banks in the state to bring their credit deposit ratio at par with the national average.
The credit-deposit ratio, or CDR, has steadily risen to 46.6 per cent as on September 2012 but it is still far lower than the national average of 76.5 per cent, Gogoi said at a meeting with the RBI Governor here last evening.
The Chief Minister said the availability of institutional credit per hectare of gross cropped area in the state is only Rs 2,626, while the all-India figure is much higher at Rs 15,379.
Gogoi asked Subbarao to initiate suitable measures urgently to improve the institutional credit in the agriculture sector.
The chief minister lamented that banks issued only 1.33 lakh Kishan Credit Cards (KCC) till December 31 last year as against the target of 6.44 lakh KCCs set for the current financial year.
“Credit available for agricultural activities is only 20.4 per cent of the total credit given by banks,” Gogoi said urging the RBI Governor to take suitable measures.
The chief minister suggested including priority time allocation by banks every day for processing agricultural credit matters, strengthening of manpower and infrastructure and involvement of NGOs in credit delivery and recovery by all branches.
The chief minister expressed dissatisfaction over the ‘very poor participation’ of private sector banks in Priority Sector Lending (PSL) and urged the RBI Governor to put in place a mechanism of ensuring proper participation by them.
Gogoi also took up issues related to credit to micro, small and medium enterprises in the state.
He highlighted the pivotal role MSMEs could play in generation of self employment for the 20 lakh unemployed educated youth in the state.
The chief minister said that the banks have to be sensitised to the needs of entrepreneurs.
He told the RBI Governor about banks insisting on collateral security despite the RBI instruction not to ask for it for loans below Rs 10 lakh.
Gogoi requested Rao to increase the norm for declaration of loan as NPA for the North East region from the existing ninety days – terming it too short – to 180 days.
The chief minister underscored the need for opening up of 2,400 bank branches in Assam to meet the national figure of bank population ratio of 13,147.
Issues related to implementation of MGNREGA and Swarnajayanti Gram Sawrozgar Yojana and National Rural Livelihood Mission also came up for discussions. (PTI)
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