A pilot project of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for deepening the digital payment ecosystem, which has been rolled out in Karaikal is expected to be completed early next year, M. K. Bhattacharya, executive director, Indian Bank and chairman of the State-level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC), Union Territory of Puducherry, has said.
Addressing a recent meeting of the SLBC for fixing the Potential Linked Credit Plan (PLP) 2021-22 for the Union Territory at ₹3457.14 core, Mr. Bhattacharya said the RBI initiative aimed at expanding and deepening the digital payment ecosystem to make the district 100% digitally enabled within one year. This would enable every individual in the district to make/ receive payments digitally in safe, secure, quick, affordable and convenient manner. The timeline has been extended up to March 31 due to COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
According to Mr. Bhattacharya, even during COVID-19, banks barely missed the targets under the Annual Credit Plan as on September 2020. Banks in the Union Territory are lending more to all the sectors and the target achievement improved from 79.94% as on June 2020 to 94.44% up to September 2020.
“With the situation improving further, banks have more role to play in improving the economy. Hence, banks can improve lending and achieve more in the coming quarters,” he said.
He commended the efforts during the pandemic for ensuring the functioning of branches, ATMs and BC (banking correspondents) network by following all the government guidelines of social distancing and sanitation at all the banking points. Banks have also provided various emergency loans to different sectors, in addition to normal schemes.
Towards expanding and deepening digital payments as on March 31, 2020, 77.14% of active savings bank account holders had been covered with at least one of the facilities — Debit/ Rupay Cards, Net Banking/Mobile Banking, UPI or USSD. In the case of current accounts, 71.71% of operational account holders had been covered by at least one of the digital platforms.
High points
The Credit Deposit Ratio in the Union Territory has been maintained at 74%. Against the RBI stipulated target of minimum 40%, the priority sector advances were 64.69% as of September 2020. Agriculture advances level had improved to 24.82% as of September 2020, against the minimum stipulated target of 18% prescribed by the RBI. It was heartening to note that the percentage was maintained over 22% since March 2016, Mr. Bhattacharya said.
The weaker sections advances had also improved to 17.45% as of September 2020 against the mandatory level of 10%, showing a healthy trend indicating that the government-sponsored programmes were well implemented by the stakeholders in the Union Territory of Puducherry. Advances to the SC/ST community under priority sector lending is at 7.45% and lending to minority communities was at 15.98% as of September.
On the deposit front, the Union Territory witnessed year-on-year growth of 7.27%, advances growth of 6.76% and priority sector advances growth of 7.55% as on September as against last year.
Noting that Puducherry had started harvesting the benefits of financial inclusion as was evident from the achievement level of ACP and improvement of CD ratio, he felt that the depth of financial inclusion had stood the Union Territory in good stead during the pandemic.