Allahabad Bank’s Executive Director NK Sahoo has lauded the implications of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojya (PMJDY), one of the several flagship financial inclusion measures undertaken by the incumbent Government, for the common man.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday Sahoo said that the scheme has empowered common people and established better correlation between the bank and customers. “I would name PMJDY for its impact on financial scenario all across the country. It encouraged people to have bank accounts and even promoted them for this. Reach of banks have gone up extensively. Besides making people financially empowered it also helped banks to reach them out in a mission mode.

Also, measures like direct benefit transfer from the Government could get better outcome,” said the ED. Talking about health of the bank in Jharkhand Sahoo said that its non-performing asset (NPA) here was around 10 per cent of the total advances. “Allahabad Bank’s overall NPA is 17-18 per cent but in Jharkhand it is Rs 400 crore against Rs 4000 crore of advances. Our credit deposit ratio is 47 per cent which is needed to be taken up further,” he added. The nationalised bank has 145 branches and total business of Rs 13200 crore in the State out of which Rs 9000 crore is deposits. Rs 1000 crore of the advances are in the agriculture sector.         

Nevertheless, Sahoo expressed disappointment over land related laws existing in the State which are often treated as obstacle in mortgaging land against the bank loans. “We have been raising the issue before the Government during the State Level Bankers’ Committee meetings but this is still an issue which is impacting the CD ratio. We expect this issue to be resolved sooner than later,” he said.

At the same time the ED named the SMART initiative from the Allahabad Bank. “We are focusing more on SMART which is loaning to small, medium, agriculture and retail sectors more in number thus our advances are not much affected much due to land related hurdles,” he said. Out of total 145 branches, the bank has its 70 branches in rural area and another 38 in semi-urban areas in Jharkhand while sharing 4.45 per cent business of all the banks in the State.

It is also performing the role of lead bank in Dumka and Godda districts. “At Godda we have launched 59 minute loan sanctioning for MSMEs and since it has been launched 509 applications in the district have been sanctioned on line. Godda is one of the aspirational districts of the State having over 25000 weavers who can be supported with loans,” said Sahoo.