Banks' credit growth dips in Punjab, Haryana

Growth in banks' advances or loans dropped sharply, with expansion in farm advances remaining the "lowest" during period ending June 2014, says a bankers' report.
Advances in Punjab grew by 11.09 per cent as on June 2014 as against lending growth of 17.24 per cent as on June 2013, as per State Level Bankers Committee Report (SLBC).
Overall advances went up to Rs 1.83 lakh crore for the period ending June 2014 as against Rs 1.65 lakh crore in corresponding period of previous year.
It was the semi-urban sector in Punjab where the advances grew by just 1.59 per cent as against growth of 25.95 per cent witnessed in year ago period.

In rural and urban sectors advances were up by 13.51 per cent and 15.28 per cent, as per SLBC (Punjab) report.
In neighbouring Haryana, overall lending surged by 11 per cent to Rs 1.58 lakh crore as on June 2014 while it had grown by 17 per cent as on June 2013, as per SLBC (Haryana) report.

In case of Haryana, it was both urban and rural sectors where lending growth was mere 9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.
Growth in lending to farm sector in Punjab was recorded at 10.68 per cent which was lesser than the growth of 18.48 per cent in year ago period.

In Haryana, the pace of advances to agriculture was also recorded at 13 per cent, lower than that of 15 per cent in corresponding period of last year, as per report.
However, Punjab witnessed 14.50 per cent and 26.91 per cent growth in priority sector (PS) advances and medium and small enterprises (MSE) respectively while in Haryana, the growth in PS advances and MSE loaning was 18 and 28 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, in SLBC (Punjab) meeting, it was decided to provide liberal credit line to food processing ventures including cold chain in order to boost the food processing sector in the state.

In the SLBC meet, Gauri Shankar Executive Director, Punjab National Bank said that it was imperative for all banks to support food processing sector as per the latest policies of Reserve Bank of India that focuses on value addition of agriculture products.
He asked all the banks to aggressively provide credit support to all sunshine projects of food processing sector in the state as per the policies of RBI.
Secretary Food Processing Punjab S R Ladhar advised banks to make schemes of department more popular and asked them to pursue the entrepreneurs to set up new units and modernization of existing units in the food processing sector.