Performance of banks reviewed

A district-level review committee meeting convened by the State Bank of India, the lead bank, here on Wednesday evaluated the performance of banks during the first quarter of the current financial year.

The Collector, R. Palaniyandi, who chaired the meeting, said the performance of the banks was mixed during the first three months of the current year vis-à-vis benchmarks set by the Reserve bank of India.

He said the credit to deposit (CD) ratio stood at 80.29 percent, which was more than the RBI norms of 60, showing a healthy trend in ground level disbursements.

It reflected that the deposits were utilised for entrepreneurial ventures within the district itself and that there was no `flight of capital.' Similarly, priority sector advances to total advances ratio and direct agricultural advances to total advances ratio stood at 42.17 and 18.81 percent, more than the RBI norms of 40 and 18 respectively.

However, weaker sector advances to total advances ratio and priority sector advances ratio were below the RBI norms.

Differential Interest Rate (DIR) advances to total advances also was below the RBI benchmark of one percent, to stand at 0.01 percent, indicating that the economically backward sections were not getting the benefits of DIR. Dr. Palaniyandi said that the banks in toto had received deposits to the tune of Rs. 200 crore during the first quarter.

Of this, commercial banks received Rs. 157 crore, regional rural banks got Rs.5 crore and cooperative banks Rs. 38 crore as deposits.

In the same period, the banks had lent Rs. 235 crore as advances.

Under Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), loans worth Rs. 22.94 lakh were sanctioned to 71 beneficiaries.

A. Desingu, lead bank manager, and R. Bharat Kumar, Assistant General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) were present.

Source: The Hindu