FM asks bankers for transparency in loan waiver

Union finance minister P Chidambaram has asked bankers to check accuracy and integrity of the statements being made by the agricultural borrowers to ensure that they were the eligible persons to claim money in the agricultural debt waiver and debt relief scheme.

Chidambaram was addressing Mumbai-based heads of public sector banks in the city on Saturday before leaving for Bangalore for a similar meeting with South-based bankers.

Chidambaram urged the bankers to be transparent on the issue of loan waiver and see that the scheme was being implemented in a transparent manner. Almost all the heads of the PSBs having their headquarters in Mumbai, including State Bank of India, Bank of India and Union Bank of India, were present in the meeting. The FM had addressed a similar meeting of heads of Delhi-based state-run banks a few days back.

All the banks have been asked to prepare a list of eligible borrowers in the rural areas and submit the same before the government by June-end. Also, the FM asked the bankers to claim for the reimbursements after disbursing the loan waivers to the farmers and the same will come in phases. The first tranche of funds was likely to come from the government by July-end.

TS Narayanasami told FE ?We have almost prepared the list of eligible farmers for the scheme and we will have no problem in submitting the same before the government within the deadline?. MD Mallya, chairman & managing director of bank of Baroda said ?We are under the process of preparation of the list and I have asked all the supervisory officers in my bank to verify the list before finalizing it?.

The government had recently hiked the total amount in loan waiver scheme from earlier Rs 60,000 crore to Rs 71,680 crore. It was on Friday that the RBI had issued a notification instructing all the banks to take the guidelines issued by the government on the issue to the ground-level staff so as to ensure the immediate implementation of the scheme. In case of RRBs (regional rural banks) and co-operatives, the instructions are being issued by Nabard.

Conduct code for MSE funding

On Saturday, finance minister, P Chidambaram released the ?Code of Bank?s Commitment to Micro and Small Enterprises? brought out by the Banking Codes and Standards Board of India in collaboration with the Indian Banks? Association at a function held at the Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai.

The code reflects the positive commitment of banks to MSE customers to provide easy, speedy and transparent access to banking services.