State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) Chairman C P Swarnakar on Tuesday said that the banks in Karnataka had taken initiative for setting up training institutes to encourage self employed ventures by youth.

Speaking at the SLBC meeting here on Tuesday he said that the major banks have sponsored 31 rural development and self employment training institutes to impart free residential training to the rural unemployed youth and also extend couselling services during the post training period to facilitate their settlement.

He claimed that nine districts selected by Lead Banks had successfully completed first phase of 100 per cent Financial Inclusion through opening No Frills Accounts including SB Accounts.

He urged the bankers to adopt the remaining 18 districts for achieving first phase of 100 per cent Financial Inclusion by September.

The Chairman said that the package of relief measures for the Debt Stressed Farmers of six identified districts, the commercial, cooperative and rural Development banks had submitted interest claims to the tune of Rs 515.27 crore, Rs 95.15 crore, and Rs 115.47 crore respectively so far to the RBI and the NABARD.

The banks had also rescheduled 2,92,748 accounts involving credit limit of Rs 1208.22 crore and granted fresh credit to 2,27,124 farmers in Belgaum, Hassan, Chitradurga, Chikamagalur, Kodagu and Shimoga districts, he said.

Reviewing the performance of the banks in providing the required financial support to priority sector, he said the banks had disbursed Rs 21,999 crore against the target of Rs 21,579 crore accounting for 101.95 per cent achievement during the last fiscal 2006-07, he said.

Under the farm sector, the banks could disburse Rs 13,388 crore during the previous fiscal, he said.

The banks performance in other areas as of March 2007 he said that the aggregate deposits stood at Rs 1,30,750 crore and advances level was Rs 1,07,624 core with a Credit Deposit Ratio of 82.39.

The advances to agriculture sector extended by the banks was Rs 22,149 crore accounting for 20.56 per cent of the total advances exceeding the norm of 18 per cent, he said.

State Development Commissioner Falguni Rajkumar called upon thebanks to shift to qualitative lending rather than quantitative lending with utmost importance given for lending under agriculture
and allied activities.

Reserve Bank of India Regional Director Devaki Muthukrishnan said that there was a need for simplification procedures for loans to small and marginal farmers to dispense with requirement of no due certificate for loans up to Rs 50,000. The farmers could furnish self declarations to the banks to avail loans, she stated.