Sunday, November 6, 2011

Banks come to assistance of earthquake affected with soft loan option

MORATORIUM OF 1 YEAR FOR THOSE UNABLE TO PAY EMI
GANGTOK, 04 Nov: The state government has taken the initiative to approach banks in the state to assist those people affected by the earthquake especially those who have taken house loans etc. Today the Chief Secretary, Karma Gyatso along with Additional Chief Secretary, R Ongmu, held a special meeting with all banks in the state, 26 in all including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The 26 banks operating in Sikkim collectively today made two major relief announcements for Sikkimese people whose livelihood avenues have been affected by the September 18 earthquake.
Firstly, the banks here have provided a moratorium of maximum 1 year for those genuinely affected persons who are unable to pay the Equated Monthly Interest (EMI) installments. The second window is rescheduling of loan repayment where a loanee can decrease the EMI amount and stretch the repayment period for maximum period of 10 years.
These two major decisions were announced by RBI Sikkim general manager Eugene E Karthak to the media at a press conference held this evening at Chintan Bhawan.
The rescheduling of EMI payment means that a loanee can request the bank to extend the loan repayment period to a year or more. Some banks are willing to reschedule the loan repayment schedule to 10 years. During this process, the EMI will come down to match with the corresponding increase in repayment years.
The banks here are also offering a moratorium up to 1 year as per the RBI guidelines to the earthquake victims who are unable to deposit their EMIs because of the earthquake, said Mr Karthak. By utilizing the moratorium option, the EMI payments are suspended for the period agreed upon and starts from the month where the loanee is confident that he can resume his EMI payments, he said.
In this regard the bankers informed that those affected could approach them following which the concerned bank would take up a case study according to which fresh loans etc would be provided. It was also provided that the state government would provide the banks with the list of such affected people in the state. Affected borrowers seeking more clarification/information can dial three RBI helpline numbers-201013, 204362 and 201391.

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