Nationalised banks in Tumkur, Mysore and Dharwad districts will launch UPA government’s flagship programme Direct Cash Transfer Scheme, now renamed Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme, on Tuesday.
Addressing the 123rd meeting of the State-Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) at Vidhana Soudha here on Monday, M G Sanghvi, chairman and MD of Syndicate Bank and chairman of the SLBC, said under the scheme, subsidy, wages, scholarships, social security pensions and others, would directly be credited to the accounts of the beneficiaries to avoid delay, plug leakages and bring in more transparency.
He said all the banks in association with government departments in Tumkur, Mysore and Dharwad districts had taken steps to open accounts for various scheme beneficiaries. “The banks are also in the process of linking Aadhaar number to the accounts,” he added.
Highlighting the Comprehensive Financial Inclusion Programme of banks in the state, he said 100 per cent coverage of all 3,395 unbanked villages with a population of 2,000 and more was achieved in the last six months.
As many as 1,652 villages in the state with a population of 1,600-2,000 as per the 2001 census had been allotted to the banks under Swabhimaan Financial Inclusion Plan on gram panchayat model, he said. Referring to the Annual Credit Plan 2012-13, he said the banks had disbursed `27,806 crore in the priority sector credit during the first half, against an annual target of `54,503 crore.
In the agriculture sector, the banks had disbursed `17,782 crore, including `11,945 crore towards crop production loan. In the secondary and tertiary sectors, the disbursement stood at `4,399 crore and `5,625 crore respectively.
“As the achievement under the secondary sector was 95 per cent of the annual target, it has been revised from `4,628 crore to `11,930 crore resulting in a rise in the target in the priority sector to `61,805 crore,” he said.
He also said the performance of banks in the state during the first half of the current fiscal was at `4,10,233 crore while aggregate advances stood at `3,04,940 crore.