District Consultative Committee meeting discusss poor lending record in agri and allied sectors in South Sikkim

GANGTOK, 16 Sept: The District Consultative Committee (DCC) meeting of South district was held at Namchi on 13 September. The meeting was chaired by ADC, South Sikkim, ST Tamang and was attended by Assistant General Manager-cum-Lead District Officer (LDO), Reserve Bank of India, Gangtok, Anil Kumar Yadav, Lead District Manager (LDM), State Bank of India, Gangtok, AK Das along with branch managers of various banks in the district and officers from some of the Line Departments of South district.
As per a press release, during the meeting all the banking and developmental activities of the district were reviewed for the quarter ended 30 June, 2012. The ADC informed the house that in view of a meeting of the Government officials called by the Chief Minister of Sikkim at Gangtok, a large number of representatives from the Line Departments including DC, South Sikkim were unable to attend the DCC meeting .
The Committee reviewed the Annual Credit Plan (ACP) targets of South Sikkim for June 2012 quarter. Interacting in the discussion AGM, RBI, Mr Yadav expressed displeasure at the low level of achievemnt of the ACP targets which was just 10.9 percent in the first quarter of the year. He urged the banks to provide timely advances to the prority sector including agriculture, horticulture etc to enable the farmers to carry out their economic activities, the release mentions.
He also expressed unhappiness at the performance of the Private Sector banks viz Axis Bank and HDFC Bank of Namchi for showing zero level achievement  of their ACP targets. He reiterated that as per the extant RBI instructions even the Private Sector banks are supposed to achieve the Priority Sector targets in their service areas.
The release informs that the Credit Deposit (CD) Ratio of South Sikkim was 58.4 percent as on 30 June, 2012, which was highest among all the districts in the state. Mr Yadav informed the house that all the bank branches have to achieve atleast 40 percent CD Ratio, as below this percentage of CD Ratio is strictly monitored by the RBI and the Government of India and hence urged those branches whose CD Ratio was below 40 percent to work hard towards achieving the same.
Another area of concern which was deliberated upon at the DCC meeting was of very poor lending in the Agriculture and Allied Activities in the district by the banks. Under this Sector the overall achievent is dismally low at 6.7 percent.
Reacting to this agenda Mr Yadav suggested the banks to organise Credit Camps at the Block and Panchayat level with the assistance of the Agriculture Department and the District administration to improve the advances to this sector, as this segment had tremendous amount of potential in the district.
He also informed the house of the RBI’s new Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Scheme , which would help the farmers to a great extent and urged the banks to issue more KCCs to the eligible farmers. The LDM added that in a recent meeting with NABARD the scale of finance under the KCC Scheme has also been decided.
The progress under SGSY, PMEGP, SJSRY and Weavers Credit Card Scheme in South Sikkim were also discussed during the meeting.
Mr Yadav also apprised the house about the features of the new “Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account (BSBDA)” of the RBI , which is going to replace the existing “No Frills” accounts towards Financial Inclusion of customers. Under the recent circular of the RBI all the banks have been advised to offer a “ Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account” by offering minimum common facilities to to all their customers. The new account should be considered a normal banking service available to all and it will not have the requirement of any minimum balance.
Further there will be a facility of ATM card or ATM-cum-Debit Card and these facilities will be without any charges. While there will be no limit on the number of deposits that can be  made in a month, account holders will be allowed a maximum of four withdrawals in a month , including ATM withdrawals.
It was also informed in the meeting that a new branch of Dena Bank is going to be inaugurated at Namchi shortly.
The DCC meetings, under the Chairmanship of the DC, are held on a quarterly basis in each district of the state to review the achievement of the Annual Credit Plan (ACP) targets by different banks located in each distict, the release adds.