Customer outreach: PSBs disburse Rs 2.53 lakh crore loans in October

State-owned banks have disbursed loans worth Rs 2.53 lakh crore during the festive month of October under 'customer outreach programmes', the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.

An amount of Rs 1.06 lakh crore was disbursed towards new term loan, while Rs 46,800 crore was given as working capital loan, the ministry said in an official statement. The new term loan and working capital loan constitute 60 per cent of total disbursement.

The banks credited Rs 19,627.26 crore to the non banking financial companies (NBFCs), which remained under stress due to liquidity crunch following IL&FS criris.

Last month, the finance ministry had said PSBs extended credit support of Rs 2.56 lakh crore to NBFCs by way of credit and pooled buyout since September 2018 as part of efforts to provide much-needed liquidity to the sector.

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In September, the Finance Ministry had directed the public sector banks (PSBs) and several private sector financial entities to launch 'customer outreach initiative' covering 226 districts in the first phase and 148 districts in the second phase, for providing loans to retail customers and MSMEs during festive season. During four-days starting October 3, loan melas were organised in 226 districts across the country for extending credit for retail, agriculture, vehicle, home, MSME, education and personal needs of consumers. The second phase of loan mela was organised in 148 districts from October 21-25, just before Diwali.

The government has started this initiative in wake of a slowdown in private consumption which dragged India's GDP growth to 5 per cent in the first quarter of this fiscal.

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"PSBs actively reached out to their customers in these camps and made concerted efforts towards activities such as sanctioning of loans as per prudential norms, opening of accounts along with Aadhar and mobile seeding of accounts, and popularizing BHIM app," the ministry said.

The drive also simultaneously galvanised similar outreach efforts in individual branches of PSBs, i.e. outside the camps, it added.

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar