Jammu: J&K Bank Wednesday convened 106th meeting of J&K State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) Jammu which was presided over by B. B. Vyas,Chief Secretary J&K Government in presence of Financial Commissioner Revenue, Lokesh DuttJha; Principal Secretary Finance Navin Kumar Chaudhary, Principal Secretary, Planning & Dev., Rohit Kansal, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India Thomas Mathew, Chief General Manager NABARD Vijay Kumar, Deputy Secretary, DFS, MoF, GoI A.K.Dogra, other senior functionaries of the State Government, banks, Insurance Companies, BSNL etc.
Chairman, J&K Bank (Convenor, J&K SLBC) Parvez Ahmed expressed his gratitude to the Chief Secretary B. B. Vyas for his proactive intervention to resolve various outstanding issues like allotment of land to RSETIs & Farmers Training Centres besides ensuring that Deputy Commissioners of 6 districts of Srinagar, Kupwara, Pulwama, Leh, Udhampur and Rajouri join the meeting through video conferencing, whereas two Deputy Commissioners of Jammu and Samba attended the SLBC meeting in person. He further added that the initiatives taken by the Chief Secretary will act as enablers to sort out various issues like Digitization of revenue records, Low Credit Deposit Ratio in certain districts of the State, poor performance under Government Sponsored Schemes and dismal performance under some important segments of Priority Sector of public concern,
Briefing the House on the achieved numbers of the Banks under annual credit plan (ACP) for the Half year ended September 2017, Convenor, J&K SLBC Parvez Ahmad said: “Banks operating in the State have extended a total credit of Rs.10,950.72 Crore in favour of 3,97,058 beneficiaries during the first half of CFY ended 30th September, 2017 against annual target of Rs.28,841.64 Crore for 9,66,047 beneficiaries under Annual Credit Plan 2017-18, thereby registering achievement of 38%in financial terms and 41% in physical terms. J&K Bank alone he added has disbursed Rs.7,985.93 Crore during the period under review, which makes for 73 pc of the total credit extended by the 43 banks and financial institutions operating in the State.
However, said the Convenor most of the banks were not focusing on priority sector lending which is the thrust area of the Government as the achievement under priority sector lending was only 30% as compared to 56% in non priority. Urging upon the banks to take the targets under Anuual Credit Plan especially priority sector seriously for achievement he asserted that except for the J&K Bank none of the Banks were near achievement of Priority sector lending targets. Concomitantly the progress under the Government Sponsored schemes too was poor and a cause of concern for all the stakeholders. He also delineated the achievements under various sectors viz. agriculture 38%, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises 32%, Education 13.48% and housing 14.64%.
Chief Secretary Mr. B.B. Vyas pointed out that despite having huge potential, the credit off-take under Housing & Education Sectors remained low and advised the Banks put in concerted efforts to improve disbursements under these sectors. He directed the Revenue Authorities to fast track digitization of land records to obviate delay caused in obtaining revenue extracts which affects the lending especially under Housing Sector.
Appreciating the role played by J&K Bank for acting fast on Government directions to make Aadhar enrolment cum updation centres functional in its 82 branches against a target of 83 branches Chief Secretary desired that the J&K Bank increase the designated branches to which the Chairman J&K Bank promptly agreed to increase to 100 . He advised other banks to make their designated branches functional at the earliest to expedite 100 % Aadhar enrolment in the state, The government he said has already issued 97 lac Aadhaar Cards and activated the Social Welfare/ICDS Setup/school education set up by capacity building to commence Aadhar enrolment from January, 2018.
Expressing Serious concern over low Credit Deposit Ratio in some districts Mr Vyas directed all the stakeholders including the Lead District Managers to introspect and take necessary corrective measures for improving the penetration of credit.
It was decided during the deliberations of various agenda items to constitute two separate committees comprising members from Banks, Government Departments and other stake-holders one to look into the issues of documentation in Housing & education loans and other one to come up with reasons and remedial measures for huge pendency/rejection in the government sponsored cases.
The house, on being apprised by the Convenor SLBC about the various representations received from different trade and tourist associations on the hardships faced by them due to lack of recovery in economic activity and impending repayments, unanimously resolved to request the Central Government and the Reserve Bank of India to work out such measures as may be appropriate to extend support to trade and businesses affected by the unprecedented floods of 2014 and abnormal circumstances in 2016 in J&K.
Convenor SLBC Parvez Ahmed concluded by assuring the Government on behalf of all the member banks to extend complete support for framing and effectively implementing programmes aimed at entrepreneurial development, livelihood generation and poverty alleviation in the state.
The Welcome address and Vote of thanks were presented by Vagish Chander Executive President and Rakesh Gandotra Vice President respectively.
