The Hindu
Mangalore, Oct 2: Banks in Dakshina Kannada have surpassed the loan disbursement target fixed by the Union Government for minorities ahead of the deadline. Stating this at the district-level review committee meeting for banking developments in Dakshina Kannada held here on Wednesday, Udayakumar Holla, Manager of SyndicateBank, which is the lead bank, said that the Government had identified Dakshina Kannada as one of the threedistricts with a large minority population. Gulbarga and Bidar are the other two districts.
He said that the Centre had fixed a six per cent loan disbursement target for minorities to be achieved in Dakshina Kannada by 2009-10. The total advances by banks in the district stood at Rs. 6,654 crore at the end of June 2008 of which advances to minorities accounted for Rs. 957 crore. This was against the target of Rs. 360 crore for minorities. The loans advanced constitute 14 per cent of the total advances.
Mr. Holla said that banks had also surpassed the loan disbursement target fixed for weaker sections of society in the district. Advances to weaker sections stood at 13 per cent at the end of June 2008 as against the target of 10 per cent. The loans were disbursed by 384 branches of various banks.
K.P. Udupa, District Development Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, wanted to know why there was a huge disparity between advances to farm sector and the SSI sector. He said that advances to the farm sector stood at 155 per cent whereas it was 77 per cent in the case of SSI sector at the end of June 2008. He said it appeared that banks considered agro-processing industries as coming under the farm sector and hence advances to the farm sector were more.
Replying to this, Mr. Holla said that last year, the Centre had directed that agro-processing industries could be given indirect finance as they were supporting industries for agriculture. Hence, disbursement was more for farm sector.
K.U. Shanbhag, general manager, SyndicateBank, told the meeting that banks in the district had done business of Rs. 17,805 crore till June this year.
Deposits were at Rs. 11,151 crore and advances at Rs. 6,654 crore till June.
Mr. Holla said that advances to priority sector stood at Rs. 538 crore as against the target of Rs. 493 crore. The level of priority sector advances constituted 59 per cent of the total advances. As many as 59,656 farmers were given loans under Kisan Credit Card scheme till June 2008, he added.