The government on Thursday said that public sector banks (PSBs) disbursed loans worth Rs 2.53 lakh crore in October, the month in which they carried out two phases of customer outreach programme under the government prodding in 374 districts of the country. About 60% of these were fresh loans.

Though it is not immediately clear if this represented a big jump from trend, the government said that “the PSBs actively reached out to their customers in the camps and made concerted efforts towards activities such as sanctioning of loans as per prudential norms, opening of accounts along with Aadhaar and mobile seeding of accounts, and popularising BHIM app”.

The drive, in which other banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) were also supposed to participate, was aimed at boosting credit flows to all critical segments of the economy and counter the slowdown.

As FE reported earlier, non-food credit growth in the banking system fell to a two-year-low of 7.92% year-on-year during the fortnight ended November 9. Earlier, the growth had fallen to 8.69% in the fortnight ended September 27 to rise marginally to 8.79% during the fortnight ended October 25, buoyed by the festive season and the customer outreach by PSBs. The pace of loan disbursal apparently slowed after the outreach period.

According to the government, a total PSB credit to NBFCs stood at Rs 19,627 crore in October, including on-lending of Rs 15,297 crore.

Of the loan disbursal by PSBs in October, over Rs 1.05 lakh crore was towards new term loans while fresh working capital loans were Rs 46,800 crore.

While the largest quantum of disbursement at Rs 1.22 lakh crore was extended to corporate India, agriculture and MSME segments received loans at Rs 40,504 crore and Rs 37,210 crore, respectively. Vehicles loans by PSBs in the month were about Rs 7,100 crore. “The drive also simultaneously galvanised similar outreach efforts in individual branches of PSBs i.e. outside the camps,” the statement said.

In the first phase of the outreach programme between October 1-8, the total loan disbursal by PSBs were to the tune of Rs 82,000 crore. The second phase of the outreach began on October 21.