NEW DELHI: Banks have sanctioned loans worth Rs 63,574 crore to about 13.84 lakh borrowers in a fortnight under the credit outreach programme, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday.
Under this programme, banks have been holding special camps across various parts of the country to sanction loans to eligible borrowers as per the prudential norms.
Most of the banks have announced festival offers at concessional rates of interest and waived processing charges. Since the commencement of the government's nationwide Credit Outreach Programme on October 16, 2021, 13.84 lakh loans totalling Rs 63,574 crore have been sanctioned through 10,580 camps held across the country as of October 31, a tweet by the Finance Minister's office said.
"The loans under the Credit Outreach Programme are over and above those sanctioned and disbursed under the various Central Government loan guarantee schemes," it added. As per the data shared by the Finance Ministry, as much as Rs 21,687.23 crore in business loans were sanctioned to about 3.2 lakh beneficiaries, while vehicle loans worth Rs 4,560,39 crore were sanctioned to 59,090 borrowers.
Housing loans worth Rs 8,994.25 crore were sanctioned to 41,226 borrowers as of October 30, 2021, it said. Over 7 lakh farmers availed Rs 16,734.62 crore agriculture loan in the last fortnight under the initiative.
Similar outreach programmes were held between October 2019 and March 2021 by banks and fulfilled all kinds of credit requirements of the RAM sector (Retail, Agriculture and MSME). The Finance Ministry said Rs 4.94 lakh crore were distributed under the outreach programme.