BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Tuesday asked three private sector banks to improve their lending in priority sectors and key welfare schemes of the government.
The chief minister met representatives from Axis, ICICI and HDFC banks at the Lok Seva Bhawan here and expressed disappointment with their persistent poor performance in implementing various welfare schemes in the state. He emphasised that banks play a crucial role in the government’s poverty alleviation programmes and advised them to extend more loans to beneficiaries under different schemes.
On June 21, the three banks had been removed from the empanelled list for handling state government’s business and deposits. These private banks have shown poor performance in implementing various state welfare schemes such as agricultural loans, Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), PM SVANidhi, Standup India and insignificant disbursement of home loans, education loans and export credit.
Majhi emphasised that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the central government has been implementing various welfare schemes for the poor. The goal is to financially empower people through loans and increase their employment opportunities.
The bank representatives accepted the chief minister’s suggestions and expressed their willingness to extend loans under these schemes. They assured the CM that there would be significant improvement in their performance soon.
Chief minister’s principal secretary Saswat Mishra briefed Majhi about the performance of these banks in the last two financial years. Axis Bank executive director Munish Sarada, government business head Anil Agrawal, east regional head Saurabh Datta, HDFC Bank country head Smita Bhagat, branch banking head, east, Sandeep Kumar, regional head Deepak Singh, ICICI Bank business head Sumit Meherotra, Odisha city business head Vinod L and regional head Amiya Nayak were present in the meeting.