Banks disburse Rs 6,744cr loans in K'taka in 7 months

The public sector banks have disbursed Rs 6,744 crore during the first seven months of current fiscal 2005-06 as against the annual target of Rs 9,912 crore, accounting for 68 per cent of the target in the state.

The banks have sanctioned credit limit of Rs 48.75 crore to 858 farmers for taking up horticulture projects under National Horticulture Board subsidy scheme.

Announcing this at the 96th meeting of the state level bankers' committee, here on Thursday, N Kantha Kumar, chairman and managing director, Syndicate Bank said about 3.26 lakh new farmers have been brought into the institutional fold by providing financial support of Rs 1,798 crore, of which commercial banks and regional rural banks accounted for Rs 1,619 crore with 80.51 per cent achievement of the annual target.

He said the share of weaker section advances in the total credit has gone up to 9.69 per cent as of September 2005. He appealed to banks to make all out efforts to attain the minimum 10 per cent level by March 2006.

The banks have respondend and extended Rs 49.06 crore to 10,219 flood affected victims this year, he informed.

While reviewing the performance of the banks in other areas, as of September 2005, Kantha Kumar said the banks have aggregate deposits of Rs 96,125 crore and advances of Rs 74,625 crore with a credit deposit ratio of 77.63 per cent.

Under the priority sector, banks in Karnataka have extended Rs 33,848 crore to various segments of the society, which constitutes 45.36 per cent of the total advances, thereby exceeding the 40 per cent target stipulated by the Reserve Bank of India, he said.

The advances to agriculture sector extended by banks was Rs 14,092 crore, accounting for 18.88 per cent of the total advances, exceeding the norm of 18 per cent stipulated by RBI.

The Banks have also extended fresh Kisan Credit Cards to 6.29 lakh farmers with total credit limit of Rs 2,088.32 crore during the first half of the current fiscal.

Kantha Kumar said that under annual credit plan, banks have disbursed Rs 8,652 crore to priority sectors during the first half of the fiscal as against the annual target of Rs 15,026 crore, thereby achieving 57.58 per cent of the set annual target.

The meeting was attended by V Vasanthan, general manager of RBI, A K Agarwal, additional chief secretary and development commissioner, government of Karnataka, CGM of Nabard B B Mohanty, senior executives of various banks, RRBs and higher state government officials.