Public sector banks disburse Rs 4.91 lakh cr loan during Oct-Nov

New Delhi: As part of a government-mandated outreach programme, public sector banks have disbursed a record Rs 4.91 lakh crore of loans during October-November, the finance ministry said on Tuesday.

To boost consumption and revive the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in September asked banks to reach out to customers and signal their willingness to lend following all prudential norms.

Under her direction, outreach camps or loan 'melas' were conducted across 374 districts to improve credit delivery and support the needs of the economy, with particular focus on MSMEs, NBFCs, corporates, retail and agriculture sector borrowers, without compromising prudential lending.

Banks disbursed Rs 2.52 lakh crore of loans in October and Rs 2.39 lakh crore in November. With this, the total disbursement by public sector banks to various sectors since the launch of the Customer Outreach programme in October stands at Rs 4.91 lakh crore, it said.

During the two months, banks have given Rs 72,985 crore to MSME sector while loans to corporates stood at Rs 2.2 lakh crore.

For NBFCs, PSBs disbursed Rs 25,525 crore loan in November, increasing sharply from Rs 19,628 crore in October, taking the total to Rs 45,153 crore, it said.

Total support sanctioned by PSBs in the form of credit (including co-origination and on-lending) and pool buyouts from NBFCs since the IL&FS default in September 2018 till November 2019 has risen to Rs 4.23 lakh crore, including pool-buyouts of Rs 1.24 lakh crore, it added.

PSBs, that are being adequately capitalised and record recovery underway, have sufficient liquidity to support credit growth, it said.

Sitharaman while replying to a query on Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Lok Sabha on Monday said the government would make sure that the banks would not go to metropolitan cities but to 400 districts and hold outreach programs to address liquidity issue.

"So that whoever approaches them, MSMEs, farmers, homebuyers, whoever approaches them will get the credit that they would want," she said.

As per the data released, banks have given Rs 27,225 crore as home loan, Rs 11,088 crore as vehicle loans and Rs 1,111 crore as education loan during the two months.

Farmers availed Rs 78,374 crore as agriculture loan from banks during October-November, it added.