Loan Waiver List Ready Soon - Indian Bank
Indian Bank is into the process of verifying farmers who will benefit from the loan waiver scheme announced in the Union Budget, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank M.S. Sundara Rajan told presspersons here on Sunday. The process will be over in a week and the list of the beneficiary farmers will be released. Mr. Sundara Rajan also said that the bank would not increase the prime lending rate despite the Reserve Bank of raising the Repo rates.Pointing out that some other banks had indicated of increase in lending rates, he said: “Indian Bank will continue with 12.5 per cent.” On debt waiver, he said that totally, 1.25 lakh farmers across 820 branches of the bank would benefit from the waiver. The total amount to be waived was around Rs.600 crore. Of this, Rs.350 crore was in Tamil Nadu. The entire process was progressing at a good pace as the scheme should be implemented by June 30.
The regular banking was not affected because of officials being assigned the task of carry out the waiver process. He also said that agriculture would continue to remain the priority sector for lending despite the waiver. While banks were expected to make an 18 per cent allocation for agriculture, Indian Bank set aside 21 per cent. Non-performing assets were very low in agriculture as loan recovery was 97 per cent. “Therefore, Indian Bank will not hesitate to give loans to farmers. Anyone who is denied a loan can contact me through a post card or e-mail,” he said.
Mr. Sundara Rajan indicated that the bank was looking at the option of opening overseas branches, but said he could not provide details now. The bank would open 100 branches and 150 automated teller machines (ATM) across the country this year. It already had 617 ATMs.
