Dena Bank to focus on retail, SME, farm sectors in tier-II cities

As big ticket investors have put their projects on hold, Dena bank has said it would focus more on retail, SME and farm sector in tier-II towns like Bhopal, Indore and Raipur. The bank will open a corporate branch in Indore and two branches in Shivpuri and Bhopal soon.

“We have license for two branches in Bhopal and Shivpuri and another corporate branch in Indore. However we are surveying the Madhya Pradesh undivided market and will soon open branches in other places too,” said Ashwani Kumar, chairman and managing director here. He was in town to review bank’s performance in Madhya Pradesh.

The bank has planned to organise agri-credit camps across the state to provide Rs 200 crore agri credit in this financial year. “We are offering loans for farm and allied activities to boost the growth. We have pared our tractor loans from 10.75% to 10.25% and also SME loans have been placed in a bracket of 11-13% for all viable projects,” he said.

On 15 th  of each month, he said, the bank will celebrate SME day to give at least one loan to any viable project at each branch. As regards big projects, the bank has funded few road projects worth Rs 50 crore as a part of banks consortium.

Only two accounts have put the non-performing asset level of the bank In Madhya Pradesh at 17% or 123 crore. “Of them on Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Project account is of Rs 42 crore and another Ambika Solvex has an account of Rs 35 crore,” he said.

The Bank however has much lower NPA at 4.33% and 2.77% in agriculture sector as on June 2013. “We will announce our second quarter results on November 2 and hope we will perform better this year since economy has shown sign of recovery,” he added.