BHUBANESWAR: Commercial banks operating in the State have extended credit support of Rs 5,635.30 crore to over 2.62 lakh women self-help groups (WSHGs) in the State till the end of January 2022. The State government has fixed the annual credit linkage target for the current financial year at Rs 6,002.52 crore targeting 2,80,150 SHGs. Of the total target, 2,62,836 SHGs have got credit amounting to Rs 5,635.30 crore, which accounts for 94 per cent of both physical and financial target.
According to a report of the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC), as many as 58,879 loan applications were pending at the bank-level for sanction and disbursement till the end of February. Principal Secretary Finance, Vishal Dev requested the banks for speedy disposal of the pending applications. He further advised the banks to increase the ticket size of SHG loan per SHG to Rs 4 lakh.
The average loan size of each SHG comes to Rs 2.14 lakh as many of them are not availing the full limit sanctioned by the banks. The State government has directed the Mission Shakti department to analyse the capabilities of SHGs for higher credit linkage and share the details with banks for increasing the average loan ticket size.
Considering the growth in credit linkage and repayment of loan by SHG, the interest subvention by the State government for Mission Shakti loan was fixed at Rs 200 crore for 2021-22 as against Rs 150 crore in 2020-21. As on January 31, 2022, claims amounting to Rs 107.30 crore was settled by the department by the end of January 2022.
In 2019-20 and 2020-21, goods and services worth Rs 2,800 crore were procured from various self help groups of Mission Shakti.Apart from paddy procurement, the WSHG members have been engaged as banking correspondents. Mission Shakti has executed MoUs with banks for engagement of WSHG members as BC agents. Seven banks including SBI have engaged 2,203 WSHG members as BC agents. The State government has advised the remaining banks to sign the MoU with Mission Shakti at the earliest to engage SHGs as BC agents in unbanked GPs.