“The [State] government will neither deposit its money nor carry out any transaction with banks that have been hesitant in giving loans [to beneficiaries],” Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who also holds charge of the Finance and Commercial Taxes department, said.
The State government would formulate “parameters” on which banks would be “ranked” and be given “grading”, he said, while reviewing the performance of loan disbursement under the Annual Credit Plan (ACP) of the 62nd quarterly State-level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) meeting here.
By the end of December, the State government will fix the parameters in order to prepare the “ranking and grading” of the banks, he said, adding that government money would be deposited in banks thatwould be ranked high on the “parameters” fixed by the government.
Rural Development Minister Shravan Kumar, Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, Development Commissioner Shishir Kumar Sinha, senior officials of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and other banks, also attended the meeting.
Earlier, in 2012-13, the Bihar government had come out with a similar set of norms for depositing government money in banks — public and private — he said, adding that the State government would come out with fresh parameters for depositing government money in view of the changed scenario and several other schemes.
Stating that the State government has received a large number of complaints regarding corruption in banks, especially at “the lower levels”, Mr. Modi asked bank officials to act against such erring officials.