Chief Secretary, B R Sharma Wednesday urged major Banks including J&K Bank operating in the State to proactively facilitate young entrepreneurs to avail loans under the Mudra Scheme. Chief Secretary was speaking while chairing the 2nd meeting of the Committee constituted for the implementation of 12 major action points for enhancing credit flow in J&K, approved by the RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan during the discussions held with the Finance Minister, Dr Haseeb Drabu and senior State Government officials in September 2015. Financial Commissioner, Planning & Development, B B Vyas, Commissioner Secretary Finance, Navin K Chaudhary, Commissioner Secretary, Industries & Commerce, Shailendra Kumar, Regional Director RBI, D Sethy, Chief General Manager SBI, General Manager Canara Bank, Field General Manager PNB, Executive President, J&K Bank, Credit Head North, HDFC Bank and other officers were present in the meeting.Chief Secretary said in terms of RBI guidelines on lending to MSME sector, our young entrepreneurs should know that Banks are mandated not to accept collateral security in the case of loans upto Rs 10 Lakh extending to units in the Micro-small enterprise (MSE) sector.
Chief Secretary asked Banks to reach out to these young entrepreneurs and extend loan facilities to them under the Mudra and other start up schemes meant to encourage aspiring youngsters to become first generation entrepreneurs as also to existing small businesses to expand their activities.Chief Secretary also instructed Banks especially J&K Bank to come out with a clear roadmap on how the bank will achieve the revised CD ratio target of 55% fixed by the SLBC.On the basis of past trend and available potential, SLBC had decided to fix the target of 50%, 55% and 60% CD ratio to be achieved by all the scheduled Commercial Banks by March 2016, March 2017 and March 2018 respectively.It was informed in the meeting that while SBI, PNB, Canara Bank, HDFC and ICICI Banks have achieved the targets interms of CD ratio target, however J&K Bank could not achieve deposit or advances projections.Chief Secretary also asked Banks to carry out an assessment of credit potential in non farm sector as is done by NABARD in farm sector. He said both these assessments can be combined to arrive at a realistic District Credit Plan. He said lead banks in the districts and district administration should work in tandem on this front so that focussed attention is paid to identified sectors.
On recruiting local staff in the Banks operating in the State, the Committee was informed that SBI has already issued a notification for recruitment of 150 local staff in Kashmir Valley. Similarly, PNB, HDFC, Canara, ICICI Banks have recruited mostly local staff and in future also mostly local youth shall be recruited in their establishments. On establishing training institutes by PNB, Canara Bank, SBI, HDFC and J&K Bank, the Committee was informed that the process in this regard is moving forward. PNB shall establish two composite Farmers training institutes one each at Kathua and Pulwama while as SBI has commenced its training institute at Jammu. Other banks will also be opening such institutes, it was said.The Committee also discussed linking of Annual Credit Plan with District Development Plan, Improving recovery climate legal reforms, digitalization of land records, financial literacy drives, greater use of E-payments and E-receipts and other action points.