Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stressed on improving Credit-Deposit (CD) in North-eastern states and pitched for lending to the MSMEs by both Public sector banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).
The Finance Minister asked the RRBs to focus on lending under KCC for agri-allied activities for meeting the credit requirements of such people as most of the people in North-Eastern states are engaged in agri-allied activities such as animal husbandry and fisheries.
The Union Finance Minister chaired a review meeting of RRBs of North-Eastern states in Agartala on Friday.
The Secretary of Department of Financial Services (DFS), GoI, the Chairman of the SBI, the MD & CEO of the PNB, the Chairman of NABARD, senior Government officials of North-Eastern states and Bank Representatives were also present in the review meeting.
After the meeting, the Office of Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted a series of post saying, “Smt @nsitharaman also laid emphasis on increasing the Credit-Deposit (CD) ratio in North-Eastern states.As MSME is an important sector for the economy of these states, greater thrust on lending to MSME will be given by both Public Sector Banks as well as by RRBs”.
According to the Nirmala Sitharaman Office,
“During the meeting, discussions revolved around financial performance of RRBs and their performance in flagship schemes of the central government such as PMJJBY, PMSBY, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, PM Mudra Yojana, KCC, etc.”
In another tweet, Nirmala Sitharaman Office wrote, the Minister exhorted the RRBs to work towards meeting the credit requirements of rural people of the North-East. She stated that emphasis should be on giving as much credit to the priority sector as possible.
“Smt @nsitharaman directed the Secretary @DFS_India to review individual RRBs in presence of their sponsor banks and to identify their strengths and specific issues affecting their performance”, another tweet mentioned.
She also said, a roadmap has to be prepared within 30 days which indicates interventions each RRB has to make to improve their performance in areas where performance is not up to mark & targets for next 90 days to be given to RRBs to demonstrate improvement.