Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 7: J&K Bank convened 109th meeting of J&K State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) here today which was presided over by the Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam.
The meeting was also attended by Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Development, Dheeraj Gupta, Financial Commissioner Revenue Dr Pawan Kotwal, Principal Secretary Finance, Navin Kumar Chaudhary, Principal Secretary Industries and Commerce, Shaleen Kabra, Principal Secretary Animal Husbandry Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon, Regional Director, RBI Thomas Mathew, Chief General Manager, NABARD P Balachandran, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu Sanjeev Verma, Deputy Commissioners of Jammu, Reasi, Samba and Udhampur and other senior functionaries of the State Government, banks, NABARD, Insurance Companies and BSNL. Deputy Commissioners of Bandipora, Ganderbal, Kupwara and Pulwama joined the meeting through video conference.
Expressing concern over poor lending in the agriculture, MSME and housing sectors in some districts, Chief Secretary said, “The Government is committed to uplift the economic profile of farmers and artisans with improved flow of credit and the numbers presented in the priority sector especially agriculture, MSME and housing loan segments are not in sync with the stated objective”.
He directed the convenor bank to undertake a micro analysis at the district level to understand the problems and bottlenecks in the flow of credit and take corrective action. He also underscored the urgency to improve the penetration of the formal lending to micro and small enterprises.
“Other priority sectors like Handloom, Dairy and handicraft need to be addressed in a focused manner as J&K has a huge potential for development in these sectors”, he added.
He directed the State Bank of India to immediately start the construction of the proposed RSETI at Kargil. He advised the representatives of the insurance companies to give the much needed protection and fillip to the poultry sector.
Delineating the details of the Prime Minister Kissan Samman Nidhi Yojana the Chief Secretary urged upon the bankers to work in mission mode to cover all the beneficiary farmers under the scheme by opening of the accounts as the amount under the scheme of Central Government to provide income protection to the distressed farm sector has to be routed through bank accounts and in no case the amount will be handed physically.
Principal Secretary Finance Navin Choudhary advised the private sector banks to focus not only on the mobilization of low cost deposits from the State but also participate in the priority sector lending and expansion of branches in the rural areas.
Earlier J&K Bank Chairman and CEO (Convener J&K SLBC) Parvez Ahmed presented the welcome address, whereas President J&K Bank Sunil Gupta made a brief presentation about the functioning of the banks.
During the meeting, the house also constituted a sub-committee to analyze, approve and roll out Annual Credit Plan for FY 2019-20 for J&K State.
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