)
The non-performing assets of banks in Odisha has mounted to 8.60 per cent due to high slippages in the agriculture, MSME and education loans.
Of the total Rs 90,244.86 crore advanced to the priority and non-priority sectors as on June, 2015, Rs 7,758.98 crore loans (8.60 per cent) have turned NPA.
The NPA rate is highest in case of agriculture term loans at 20.33 per cent. For overall agriculture sector, it stood at 12.88 per cent.
MSME sector was the next big contributor to the stressed assets accounting for 11.99 per cent NPA followed by education loans (11.59 per cent) and housing loans (6.13 per cent).
Any interest and principal repayment overdue for a period of more than 90 days in respect of a term loan is considered as NPA.
SLBC has expressed concern on the high rate of NPAs in the state, "For Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY), Self Help Groups (SHG) and Weaver Credit Card (WCC), the NPA and overdue percentages are too high", said the latest report of SLBC.
The banks are unable to recycle the funds owing to non-repayment of loans, mounting overdue and rising NPA percentage. The banks and government departments have to make joint efforts with specific strategies to improve the recovery performance, added the report.
NPA rates for PMRY/PMEGP, SHG, SJSRY and WCC are 34.31 per cent, 22.04 per cent, 40.39 per cent and44.65 per cent respectively.
Similarly, the overdue percentage is 46.50 at the end of June, this year. Any amount due to the bank under any credit facility, if not paid by the due date fixed by the bank becomes overdue.
"If banking community wants any help from the state government for recovery, we will help them. But the bankers should come forward to finance all the priority sectors," said R Balakrishnan, additional chief secretary (finance) on the sidelines of 140th SLBC meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, N Samba Siva Rao, corporate general manager, UCO bank said, "the state government and banks must work in unison and take sincere efforts to address the problem as NPA and overdues are above the national parameters."
Under annual credit plan, the achievement of banks in all priority sectors for April to June quarter was 17.46 per cent (Rs 8,336.04 crore in absolute terms) of the target of Rs 47,757.13 crore.
The top government officials present at the meeting urged the banks to improve CD ratio, open more branches in the unbanked gram panchayats, increase credit flow to rural areas, pass on interest subvention benefit to the loanees and provide overdraft up to Rs 5,000 to the eligible accounts under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
Out of 6,200 gram pancahyats (GPs) in the state, 4,400 panchayats do not have brick and motor bank branches.
Chief secretary GC Pati asked the banks to cover all the unbanked gram panchayats through banking correspondent model and open brick and mortar branches wherever possible.
"SLBC has prepared a plan to cover all unbanked GPs with bank branches over the next five years. For this, the state government is providing the basic infrastructure support. I urge all banks to focus on expanding services in the unbanked areas on a priority basis," said Pradip Amat, state finance minister at the meeting. Amat urged the banks to simplify the loan sanctioning process so that common people gets timely credit.
