The Bihar Government was mulling a proposal to enact a legislation on the pattern of Andhra Pradesh to regulate and have effective control over micro finance companies in the State.

Replying to a question in the State Assembly, the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr S.K. Modi, said the Superintendent of Police in Katihar district was probing the case where a micro finance company had allegedly subjected several debtors to “inhuman torture” for realisation of a piece of land under Dandkhora block in the district.

To a supplementary, he said there was no guideline set by the RBI to rein in the activities of such financial institutions and added that the Centre is planning to bring a Bill for regulating these institutions.

He said his government was also mulling a proposal to enact a law to effectively regulate and control micro financing institutions on the pattern of Andhra Pradesh.

Credit plan

Later, replying to another question, Mr Modi said the State's annual credit plan for the next financial year would stand at Rs 40,500 crore which was up by almost Rs 3000 crore from the target fixed for the current fiscal.

The low credit ratio has been a contentious issue for long between successive State governments and bankers, he said. “We are consistently trying to further improve the CDR and holding regular meeting of state level bankers committee exhorting the need for achieving their respective targets.”

To another question, he said the State government had decided in principle not to park its funds in any of the private banks as they were not cooperating in the task of improving the CDR, he said.