The Hindu Business Line : Banks to double farm credit in Kerala

As a first step, the agricultural lending will be raised by 30 per cent during the current financial year. To work out the exact modalities of the programme, a meeting of the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) will be held on June 30 under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, Mr A.K. Antony.

These decisions were taken at the 84th meeting of SLBC held here on Thursday. The Industries Minister, Mr P.K. Kunhalikutty, inaugurated the meeting, which was chaired by Mr N. Kanthakumar, Executive Director of Canara Bank.

It was decided at the meeting that the "Akshaya" project of the State Government will be implemented throughout the State with financial assistance from banks. Besides, a scheme for setting up crèche/day care centres will be taken up by the banks in consultation with the Social Welfare Department.

Another decision was for launching a scheme by "Kudumbashree" for creating employment opportunities to 50,000 youth with credit linkages with banks. The meeting felt that private sector banks, especially new generation ones, should improve lending to the priority sectors such as agriculture, small-scale industries and the weaker sections.

The meeting noted that the credit-deposit ratio of commercial banks in the State had improved by 2.83 per cent in 2003-04. The improvement was mainly due to priority sector lending that went up by Rs 3,858 crore during the year.

Total deposits of the banking system in the State stood at Rs 65,961 crore as on March 31, 2004, out of which the NRE deposits were to the tune of Rs 30,100 crore. Total advances were of the order of Rs 31,867 crore, while advances and investments in approved securities/ debentures were at Rs 35,495 crore.

Total advances to the priority sector touched Rs 15,725 crore, which was 49 per cent of the total outstanding under advances.

The rate of growth of non-resident deposits had slowed down considerably with only Rs 1,404 crore having been added during the year as against Rs 4,162 crore in the previous year.

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