AP tops in SHG-Bank linkage programme

News From Competitor States

The Self Help Group (SHG)-Bank Linkage programme in India has crossed one million mark by March 31, 2004 enabling 16.7 million poor families to access sustainable financial services from formal banking system. The SHG programme was pioneered by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

A Nabard press statement said that Tamil Nadu is the second leading state in the country after Andhra Pradesh with over 1.5 lakh credit linked Self Help Groups as on March 31, 2004.

The banks in Tamil Nadu had linked up with 51,851 Self Help Groups during 2003-04.

Nabard had set a mission of credit linking one million Self Help Groups to reach out to 100 million rural poor in India by 2007, which was achieved three years ahead of schedule.

To recognise the commendable performance of various partner agencies and to motivate others to emulate the performance, Nabard had instituted state level awards under Self Help Group-Bank Linkage Programme since 2000.

For 2003-2004, among the banks with larger network of branches within the state, Indian Bank secured the first prize followed by State Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank. Among the banks with smaller network of branches in the state, Canara Bank followed by Bank of Baroda and Punjab National bank secured the top honours. Pandyan Grama Bank won the first prize among the regional rural banks and the private sector commercial banks with larger branch network put together. In the same category for smaller banks, Adhiyaman Grama bank won the top prize.

Among the non-governmental organisation, Dharmapuri won the first prize for integrated village development programme. Nanilam branch of State Bank of India, Valliyur branch of Pandyan Grama Bank and Rameswaram branch of Ramanathapuram District Central Cooperative Banks were the top prizewinners among the bank branches.

Customers' access

The Karnataka government's final nod for the international airport and several other infrastructure projects notwithstanding, Infosys Technologies chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy said that Bangalore needs to gear up fast to attract as much investment as possible.

Speaking on the sidelines of a book launch in Bangalore on Wednesday, he related the present-day Bangalore to the Calcutta of the 1970s. "We all know how Calcutta lost out then. We should learn from it and ensure that the work is accelerated," he said, adding, "it is for all of us to work together to make customers' access to the city easy, make it a great place for employees and citizens."

While thanking the state cabinet for clearing the airport project, he said, "I am yet to see the finer details of the agreement. The plan was competitively drawn and I only hope that there is no major change. Nevertheless, I'm quite excited," he said.

His comments follow reports of yet another meet between chief minister Dharam Singh and IT captains to deliberate on the city's infrastructure woes. While Narayana Murthy said he is yet to receive any information on such a meet, he added that he will be more than glad to share his views.

Acer opens brand mall

Acer India has announced the opening of its brand store, the Acer Mall, in Bangalore. This has been done in association with its channel partner Vaibhav Systems and Networks based in Bangalore.

Like all Acer Malls across the country, this outlet will carry the full range of Acer Desktops, Notebooks and consumer peripherals which would include the Aspire series of consumer PCs and the TravelMate notebook series.

Altair Engineering, has announced HP's selection of Altair Engineering's PBS Pro workload management offering for worldwide deployment on HP's popular LINUX high performance cluster solutions.