PNB holds Mega Recovery Camps for small agricultural loans

Source :BS: Virendra singh Rawat :New Delhi/Lucknow:sep:12:2011

Punjab National Bank, whose total advances to agriculture segment stood at over Rs 34,000 crore in the first quarter of current financial year, is holding ‘Mega Recovery Camps’ all over India aimed at small agricultural loans.


The bank is reaching out to small agricultural borrowers in distress and trying to help them repay the outstanding money by part waivers and rescheduling of installments.


Agricultural advances below Rs 10 lakh taken qualify for being taken up at these camps. Such camps have been organised in Kanpur, Lucknow and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

“Over the last two months, we have organised such camps at around 20 centres pan-India and at least 15 more such camps would be organised at different places before the campaign is wrapped up,” PNB executive director Usha Ananthasubramanian told Business Standard.

She informed the bank had not set any target for the number of borrowers or amount to be settled in this campaign.


We just want to give an opportunity to small agriculturists and farmers to unburden themselves of the outstanding loans, while we also clean our books. We have received excellent response from the borrowers,” she added.


In UP, the total agriculture outstanding stood at Rs 7,623 crore at the end of June 2011.
In Lucknow Circle, the bank had received about 835 applications for the participation in the camp, while the total amount was over Rs 5 crore.


Commenting on credit off-take in the wake of hardening of interest rates of late, Ananthasubramanian admitted credit growth in the banking industry had slowed a bit, but on-going projects continued to roll.


“This year, we are targeting credit growth of 22 per cent vis-à-vis 24 per cent last year. However, our growth would still be higher than the growth forecast of 18 per cent for the banking industry by RBI,” she added.

PNB to start bank adalats to clear NPA s

Source :livemint:PTI:Thu, Jul 12 2007. 11:43 AM IST


Bank’s gross NPAs stood at Rs4,300 crore; 
cases below Rs25,000 would be taken up at adalats



Chandigarh: The Punjab National Bank on 12 June said it will start ‘bank adalats’ across the country from next month in its bid to reduce its non-performing assets.


“Like Lok Adalats, we will be starting bank adalats wherever there will be NPA accounts,” PNB chairman and managing director, K C Chakrabarty, told the media here after holding a state level bankers’ committee meeting.


He said the bank’s gross NPAs stood at Rs4,300 crore and added that cases below Rs25,000 would be considered at the ‘adalats’.


Stressing there was a need to take technology to the rural areas as only 37,000 branches of all the banks in the country operate in such areas despite the existence of 600,000 villages, he said, “we are experimenting on some models at present”.


He said “poor man’s banking or mass banking is unviable unless we have technology.”
Chakrabarty said that the 112-year-old bank was third in terms of profit.


“Our total business rose 21.7% to Rs2,36,456 crore at the end of March 2007. Deposits amounted to Rs1,39,860 crore, up 16.9%. Low cost deposits formed 46.16% of total deposits while advances rose 29.4% to Rs96,597 crore,” he said.


Credit to agriculture increased by 27.3% to reach Rs18,571 crore while share of agri credit in net bank credit stood at 18.9% as against national goal of 18%.


The bank also plans to increase its ATM presence and the customer base from 35 million to 50 million.


“We are in talks with the Railways to install 100 ATMs at about 50-60 railway stations,” he said, adding that the bank also plans to launch its credit card by early next year.


On the bank’s foreign presence, he said PNB has been granted licence by Hong Kong Monetary Authority to set up a branch in that country.


“We also plan to open offices at Singapore (offshore banking unit) and a subsidiary at Canada,” he said.


On the performance of banks in Punjab 2006-07, he said 100% financial inclusion has been achieved in Gurdaspur and Mansa and six more districts had been identified to achieve this by end of September.


The overall advances to Minority Communities have risen from Rs11,896 crore as on March 2006 to Rs15,889 crore in March this year, up 33.6%.