Banking Secy Adhia to meet govt bank CMDs on Nov 20

To take stock of Jan Dhan scheme, review performance

The finance ministry will meet chief executives of public sector banks on November 20 to take stock of the progress made under the Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY).

There will also be a review of the performance of the lenders.

Hasmukh Adhia, the newly appointed secretary of financial services, who took charge on November 8, will chair the meeting. Adhia, a Gujarat-cadre IAS officer of the 1981 batch, succeeded Gurdial Singh Sandhu, who has been appointed as the chairman of the National Authority for Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Prime Minister and the finance minister were scheduled to meet the bankers on 5 November to discuss the same issues but that interaction was cancelled at the last minute.

According to latest government data, close to 72.5 million accounts have been opened under the PMJDY till November 10 with on average half-a-million accounts every day. However, 54.8 million or over 75 per cent accounts have no balance in them.

The remaining 25 per cent garnered Rs ,600 crore since the scheme was launched in August 28.

While the target was to open 75 million accounts by January 26, it now seems that the target will be achieved well in advance. There is speculation that the account opening target will be revised upward.

Public sector banks are also experiencing rise in bad loans for more than two years now amid a slowing economy where interest rates stayed elevated. Rising in loan loss provisioning has depleted their capital at a time when the Basel-III norms has mandated higher Tier-I capital. The BJP government is yet to allocate fresh capital in the banks in the current financial year.

The previous UPA government had allocated Rs 11,200 crore in the interim budget for 2014-15.

The meeting assumes importance on the back drop of the new BJP government's attempt to revive the economy which saw two successive years of sub-5 per cent growth.

Loan growth in the banking system has been sluggish with no new projects commissioned by the industry. According to latest data available, year-on-year credit growth was 11.2 per cent till October 31 as compared to 16.2 per cent during the same period of the previous year.

Loan growth remained muted amid high interest rates as the central bank yet to cut its key policy rate or the repo rate. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has maintained status quo on interest rate in the last four policy reviews. The next policy review will be on 2 December.