Agartala, Jun 18 (IANS): The Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB) has secured the fifth position amongst India's 56 regional rural banks (RRBs) in terms of its business and growth, an official said here on Monday.

The 42-year old TGB posted s net profit of Rs 44.14 crore in the last fiscal (2017-18).

The bank in which the Centre has a 50 per cent stake, United Bank of India (UBI) 35 per cent and the Tripura government 15 per cent, has been notching up profits for the past 17 years, Chairman Mahendra Mohan Goswami told the media.

"The TGB is the only one among the eight RRBs in the northeastern region (excluding Sikkim), that has been making profits successively," he said.

Goswami said that like other nationalised banks, the TGB has been providing all modern facilities to the customers including computerised, online financial transactions and mobile banking.

It grew its volume of business in the last financial year to Rs 8332.11 crore, which is 13.06 per cent more than the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

Goswami said: "The bank currently has 159 branches including 15 ultra small branches (USB) across Tripura. The deposit of the Gramin Bank increased by 10.46 per cent and reached Rs 5944.54 crore as on March 31 from Rs 5381.74 crore on March 31, 2017.

"When most of the nationalised banks registered huge losses in the last financial year, the TGB posted net profit of Rs 44.14 crore and operating profit of Rs 178.65 crore in 2017-18 fiscal."

The bank's Credit Deposit Ratio (CDR) currently stood at 40.16 per cent against the national banks (functioning in the state) CDR of 48 per cent. The TGB's 2016-17's CDR was 36.94 per cent.

According to the official, the TGB's CRAR (Capital to Risk Assets Ratio) has gone down to 18.31 per cent against 20.76 per cent in 2016-17. However, this CRAR is much higher than the Reserve Bank of India's stipulated ratio of 9 per cent.

The bank, which covered 75 per cent of Tripura's population mostly in the rural and interior areas, also has Aadhaar-enabled 225 micro ATMs and 190 business correspondents to hand out money and other banking services at the doorsteps of customers.

The TGB is the first RRB in India to have been accorded permission by the RBI to start treasury function of the Tripura government and open a currency chest.

The bank official said that to encourage entrepreneurship among the rural youth and avoid the guarantor system in getting loans from the bank, since 2015-16 the Gramin Bank has started forming Joint Liability Group (JLG), and so far around 5,000 such groups were formed involving over 18,000 people.