The State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to embark on a massive expansion in rural and semi-urban areas. SBI, which currently has nearly 7,000 branches in these centres, will add another 3,000 branches. In this year itself, the bank hopes to kickstart with 1,000 branches.
The bank has set a target of 33% growth in agri advances, amounting to Rs 13,400 crore, in the current fiscal by issuing 1 crore SBI Tiny Cards by March 2010. Of this, 40 lakh cards will be issued in the current finan-cial year.
Also, 1 lakh villages with no banks will be covered by 2010 and 40,000 such areas will be covered during the current fi-nancial year.
Moreover, the bank has been looking at additional credit linkage of 2 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) during current fiscal. It has already credit linked more than 10 lakh SHGs up to March 2008.
After taking a decision to suspend further disbursement of tractor loans, the bank has said there was no slowdown on the agricultural loans and its commitment to agri and rural development.
SBI chairman OP Bhatt, while justifying the bank?s deci-sion to freeze tractor loans, said that the government?s scheme provides for debt relief in case of farm equipment loans to the extent of 25% if the farmer brings in 75% of the loan outstanding.
In the past year, SBI?s NPAs in the agriculture sector have risen significantly. We have pockets in the country where there are large overdues in tractor loans. It is our attempt to sensitise our branches across the country to help farmers take advantage of the govern-ment?s scheme and to reduce NPAs for the bank. As and when this happens, the farmer would be eligible and the bank willing to lend them again for agricul-tural activities.?
The agricultural advances of the bank have trebled during past four years as disburse-ments during the period aggre-gated Rs 70,000 crore. The bank, for the first time in 2007- 08, surpassed the 18% bench-mark (18.37%) set by RBI for agricultural advances.