Colour but no credit: Loan 'mela' kicks off, but without spot approvals

Although letters of loan sanctions were handed out to customers at the mela, most of these were already under process for some weeks at the branch level

If you’re headed to a loan mela—quite like a typical fair under a ceremonial tent—thinking of an on-the-spot sanction and disbursement, you got it wrong. On day one of the mega rollout, more than three decades after a similar exercise, the promised pan-Indian loan melas turned out to be customer outreach events to showcase that banks were ready to lend and were in good health, rather than a window to get fast approvals there and then.

“It’s a public outreach campaign, aimed at reiterating that banks are not shying away from offering loans,’’ Vijay Walia, general manager at Kolkata-based Corporation