Collector furious at bankers apathy

Sangareddy: District Collector Ronald Rose on Tuesday expressed his strong displeasure over the banks failing to provide loans to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and Minorities to take up various government schemes available to them.

During a review meeting held with various bankers in the district at the Collectorate, Ronald Rose found fault with the procedures banks were adopting for granting loans to the beneficiaries. Most of the loan applicants were applying for loans amounting only to Rs 1 lakh each. The government was contributing 80 per cent of the loan and the banks were to provide only 20 per cent without collateral. There were, however, complaints that some banks were keeping property documents as security for giving loans to applicants though the property may not be in their name.

In many cases, it was brought to the notice of the district administration that banks have been demanding commission from beneficiaries for providing loans. The beneficiaries are supposed to be identified by the mandal-level joint bankers and officials, the list of which would be sent by the MPDOs. However, the banks have been preparing their own lists of beneficiaries and the names of beneficiaries earlier identified have been found missing. Ronald Rose questioned the bankers why they were not complying with the procedure.

He strongly urged the bankers to generously give loans to the eligible and the needy without any conditions.He also directed the bankers to give loans to needy farmers, waive loans as per the targets laid down by the government, renew loans and give fresh loans to farmers. Satya Prasad, AGM, Reserve Bank, Venkateshwar Rao, DGM, Andhra Bank, V Venkateswarlu, Additional Joint Collector, Ramana Reddy, LDM, bankers and other officials participated in the review meeting.