The State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) of Telangana on Tuesday approved the annual credit plan for the State for 2015-16 with an outlay of Rs. 72,119 crore including Rs. 23,209 crore earmarked for crop loans.
Speaking at the launch of the credit plan, Managing Director of State Bank of Hyderabad Santanu Mukherjee, who is also the president of SLBC, said it was projected to give Rs. 47,460 crore advances to the priority sector that includes crop loans. On the performance of banks in the State during 2014-15, he said they had surpassed the targets to the extent of 180 per cent as the advances disbursed last year stood at Rs. 1,13,552 crore against the credit plan of Rs. 63,048 crore.
He claimed that target achieved for priority sectors lending last year was 119 and that of the non-priority sector at 290 per cent. Mr. Mukherjee explained that the deposits in the banks stood at Rs. 3,28,181 crore as on March 31, 2015 with a growth of Rs. 42,302 crore during the year and the advances at Rs. 3,54,166 crore with an increase of Rs. 29,202 crore.
However, the achievement of crop loans was about 98 per cent with the banks lending Rs. 18,420 crore against the target of Rs. 18,718 crore during 2014-15. Disbursement of agriculture term loans was also below the target at 96 per cent, but the activities allied to agriculture got a better deal with the banks lending Rs. 2,872 crore against the target of Rs. 2,277 crore during the last year.
For the current year, the banks have set a target of Rs. 15,807 crore for crop loans during the kharif season and Rs. 8,122 crore during the rabi season. The allocation for agriculture term loans has been pruned to Rs. 5,399 crore this year against Rs. 6,238 crore earmarked last year as the achievement was below the target at Rs. 5,985 crore.
Minister for Agriculture Pocharam Srinivas Reddy said the government would release the remaining Rs. 2,207 crore amount as part of the second instalment of crop loan waiver and requested the banks to give loan waiver certificates and renew their crop loans for issuance of fresh loans.
