House panel raps ICICI Bank for poor show on farm loans

Bank presents three-year plan for priority lending, financial inclusion

Parliamentary standing committee on finance has pulled up ICICI Bank, the country's largest private lender, for its unsatisfactory performance on lending to the country's farm sector.

Sources said panel members, cutting across party lines, expressed displeasure over the bank's performance in direct lending for agriculture, which is a part of priority sector lending (PSL).

The bank has made a presentation on July 10 before the standing committee, led by Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, on expanding financial inclusion and growing the PSL portfolio. The lender has presented a three-year plan (FY2014-16) for this purpose, said sources. An email sent to the bank seeking comments on the panel's feedback on the presentation did not elicit any response.

Sources said while ICICI Bank was a large commercial banking entity, when it came to lending to the agriculture sector, its performance was not up to the mark.

The lender's total PSL book at the end of March this year stood at Rs 67,488 crore, 35 per cent of adjusted net bank credit. Out of PSL loans, the agriculture portfolio was of Rs 19,186 crore. Direct loans for farming stood at Rs 13,398 crore. This is not a pretty picture, sources said. The bank had 3,100 branches at the end of March, out of which, rural branches were 414. The tally of rural branches went up to 614 by the end of June. The number of villages covered rose to 13,510, up from 9,935 at the end of 2012.

In its bid to expand financial inclusion, the bank has proposed to shift its focus to a district-based approach from a services-based one.

It would accord priority to digitise data at the district level and expand electronic benefit transfer across more states. It intends to cover 16,000 villages and grow credit eight times.