The total outlay of the State Credit Plan (SCP) for the year 2012-13 has been proposed at Rs 1,10,945 crore, according to BA Prabhakar, chairman and managing director of Andhra Bank and president of the State-Level Bankers Committee (SLBC).
Addressing the 178th meeting of SLBC here on Tuesday, Prabhakar said that the state had been continuously surpassing the set targets under credit plans and expressed the hope that the same would happen even in the current financial year.
During 2011-12, he said, banks’ performance for the overall credit plan in the state stood at 107.45 per cent. The outstanding agricultural credit as on March 31, 2012, had crossed the Rs 1 lakh-crore mark and stood at Rs 1,01,690 crore. The disbursements during the year were Rs 58,511 crore against the target of Rs 48,000 crore, which was at 121.9 per cent.
Prabhakar, however, said that mounting overdues and increasing non-performing assets (NPAs) had become a major concern for bankers. The gross NPAs by the end of the last financial year stood at Rs 13,800 crore. He sought a sustained and collective effort by the bankers and government machinery for reducing the NPAs.
The proposed credit plan for 2012-13 comprises crop loans of Rs 37,128 crore, agricultural term loans of Rs 6,328 crore, loans for allied activities to the tune of Rs 9,516 crore, non-farm sector loans of Rs 9,343 crore, other priority sector loans of Rs 19,852 crore and non-priority sector loans of Rs 28,778 crore.
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who launched the 2012-13 SCP, said that hereafter his government would pay directly to the banks the interest amount on the loans taken by farmers. Earlier, the state government used to reimburse the interest amount to the farmers who repaid their loans.
Reddy said that the state government had provided Rs 1,800 crore towards input subsidy to farmers but could disburse only Rs 1,068 crore in the last three months. This was due to the lack of banking facilities in remote areas, especially in the tribal belt. He asked the banks to address this problem soon.
The chief minister wanted the banks to achieve the lending target of around Rs 13,100 crore to the women self-help groups this year. His government would also soon launch a scheme for the revival of SC and ST financial corporations.
