Debasish Acharya, OP
Bhubaneswar, Sept 26: Banks in the state have seen a 10 per cent year on year increase in business in Q1 of financial year 2017-18. As of June 30, the business of banks stood at Rs4.33 lakh crore, an official quoting the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) report told Orissa POST.
The official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to be quoted, said the total Q1 business of banks comprised Rs1.78 lakh crore in advances and Rs2.55 lakh crore in deposits. Of the advances sanctioned, about Rs1.32 lakh crore was utilised. He said advances in the state have increased to Rs5,273 lakh crore and deposits to Rs36,349 crore in Q1.
The banks have also seen a decrease in the quantum of non-performing assets (NPAs) over the same period. It has come down from 13 per cent in Q1, 2016-17 to 12 per cent. “The NPA burden of public sector banks has decreased from 16 per cent to 15 per cent, whereas private sector banks saw a marginal increase of 0.12 per cent from 0.82 per cent last fiscal,” the official said. He added that while NPAs of Regional Rural Banks (RRB) have increased by 3.64 per cent, cooperative banks had improved their NPA position by reducing its quantum by 0.24 per cent.
Also, the number of bank branches in the state has increased to 5,041 against 4,920 branches for the same period last fiscal. Out of the total branches as on June 30, 2,748 were rural branches and 1,314 were in semi-urban areas. Urban areas had 979 branches. “The banks were able to add 48 more branches in rural areas and 43 and 30 more branches in semi urban and urban areas respectively,” the official added.
The total number of unbanked village panchayats in the state was 4,253 as of June 2017, of which 2,185 do not have branches within a radius of 5 km. Of 2,185 village panchayats only 711 have banking facilities via banking correspondents.
“As on June 2017, the state had 1,474 GPs that had neither brick and mortar branches nor banking correspondents. Banks are given target to appoint banking correspondents in 797 GPs and in the remaining 677 village panchayats brick and mortar branches will be opened in 340 village panchayats and in remaining either fixed location banking correspondent or ultra small branches will be opened over the next three years,” the official added.