| In just five months since the MCG was rolled out in the Ahmedabad region (covering Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh), there has already been an additional Rs 1,200 crore sanctioned to the mid corporate segment in the region, SBI chief general manager Arun Shandilya told newspersons in Ahmedabad on Friday. |
| SBI has classified mid corporates as those with credit requirements in the range of Rs five crore to Rs 70 crore or whose turnover ranges from Rs 25 crore to Rs 350 crore. |
| "Initially, we were a bit apprehensive about the arrangement as the MCG handled the credit part of the operations, while respective offices handled the operations part. |
| But the results in the past five months (the Ahmedabad branch of the MCG started functioning on October 15, 2004, while the MP branch joined in the last week of November) have been excellent. About 150 units have so far been covered in Gujarat by the MCG. |
| For the year ended March 31, 2005, the group has registered a growth of 45 per cent, the highest among all seven regions of the country where it has been launched. We are looking at a growth of about 30 per cent in credit from the MCG in the ongoing fiscal," said Anuradha Thakur, general manager, Mid Corporate Group, SBI. While 60 per cent of this growth has been registered by Gujarat, the remaining 40 per cent has been registered by Madhya Pradesh. |
| Significantly, the MCG has deputed two top officials of the bank to handle specific regions. |
| Shandilya said that I Mohapatra, deputy general manager is overseeing the MCG operations in Kutch, north Gujarat and Saurashtra, where steel, ceramic tiles, wind farming and other units are coming up, deputy general manager Deepti Sahay has already held a few round of meetings with textile and diamond units of south Gujarat in a bid to extent credit facilities to the mid corporate segment. |
| Thakur added that while financing has been mostly to textile units in Gujarat, steel units have been extended credit in Madhya Pradesh and Kutch. |
| The MCG has also provided credit to as many as ten educational institutions and although officials declined to disclose names, these include a dental college at Ahmedabad, a medical college, schools for NRIs in Surat, and an engineering college in Surat. |
| "In future, the MCG will also accord top priority to contract manufacturing pharmaceutical units in Gujarat," said Thakur. |
| On the issue of interest rates, Thakur said that this depends on the findings of the risk rating model of SBI. About 60 per cent of the additional Rs 1,200 crore credit has been for long-term loans. |
| "The MCG has been operational for just about five months now, but there is still not a single default," said Arun Shandilya. |
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