IBPS recruitment poses language hurdle to banks

Plan to ask government to extend the last date for crop insurance

The recruitment of bank officers by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), an all-India level autonomous institution for the selection of banking personnel, has given rise to a new problem while dealing with local farmers in their language.

Appointment of people who speak languages other than Kannada to Karnataka, has created a road block in communication between farmers and bank officials. Earlier, the selection of bank employees who interacted with the agricultural community was done through campus interviews. Now, they are selected through the IBPS examinations held all over the country.

This issue was highlighted at a quarterly meeting of the district lead banks in Mysore today when Mysore-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha tried to impress upon the district bank officials on the need to use Kannada as the language of communication to gain the people’s trust and confidence.

In response to this problem raised by the field agricultural officers, Simha said, if this has led to a bottleneck in communication, he would initiate steps to resolve the matter with the Centre if the banking institutions submitted a written proposal seeking recruitment of banking officials via campus interviews.

Nabard manager Madan said, there was high demand for dairy farming in the district and schemes have been introduced to encourage it. Those who want to start dairy farming would be provided with up to Rs 6 lakh loan, along with 10 cattle. The general category candidates can avail of subsidy of 25 per cent and SC/STs 33.33 per cent subsidy. The subsidy is also extended for schemes to install solar fences and construction of godowns. Details were also available from Nabard website.

State Bank of Mysore Lead Bank Manager K N Shivalingaiah said, deposits in the district have risen about 24.5 per cent to Rs 20,737.86 crore during the quarter as against Rs 16,657.52 crore during the corresponding quarter of the previous year, recording a growth of Rs 4,080.34 crore in one year. The district annual credit plan outlay for the year 2014-15 was Rs 5,574.90 crore, an increase of Rs 882 crore over last year, he added.

Joint Director of Agriculture M Mahanteshappa said in some cases financial aid credited to the bank account of beneficiaries for purchase of agricultural tools were withdrawn and used for other purposes. This has to be avoided. Responding to this, Shivalingaiah said arrangements would be made to ensure the money was not withdrawn by the beneficiaries, in case the Agriculture Department provided details of financial aid transferred.

The MP said that a plea needs to be made to the government to extend the last date for crop insurance as the last date for signing up for crop insurance is June 30. Stating that self help groups should be encouraged to start small entrepreneurial ventures, he said, banks should go a step further beyond just extending loans and identify business opportunities.

Among the loan applicants  to encourage small ventures to grow well.