SHILLONG, Feb 10 — For the first time in the past several years, the declining trend in the credit-deposit ratio in the North-eastern states appear to have been checked following the initiative launched by the Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in October last year. Sinha had promised at the North-eastern Chief Ministers conference here on October 19 last year that the CD ratio in the region would be improved from 30 per cent to the level of national average of 60 per cent in these years.
As part of the initiative, Sinha had announced that additional credit of Rs 1500 crore would be advanced by banks to the North-east during the current year ending March 31. A presentation made by the chief general manager, SBI, Guwahati in the Chief Ministers conference here yesterday claimed that till December 31, additional credit to the tune of Rs 310 crores have already been sanctioned. Besides, Rs 237 crores were disbursed under annual credit plan of the states. Under the action plan drawn up, proposed sanctions in January was Rs 290 crore, February Rs 300 crores, March Rs 600 crores taking the total sanctions during the financial year to Rs 1500 crores.
The state-wise target for sanction of the additional credit was Assam – Rs 928 crore, Meghalaya – Rs 185 crore, Tripura – Rs 153 crore, Nagaland – Rs 80 crore, Arunachal Rs 64 crore, Manipur Rs 46 crore and Mizoram – Rs 44 crore. The SBI official said as on December 1 last year, the CD ratio had marginally improved to 30.26 per cent. The position was much better at 42.68 per cent if investments in bonds and securities were taken into consideration. Then there were advances sanctioned elsewhere but utilised in the North-east.
Grave concerns were expressed at the massive Rs 328.82 crore NPA (non-performing assets) of the banks owing to sick government-owned PSUs in the region. The bank official identified lack of credit absorption capacity as one of the reasons for the low CDR in the region. He suggested preparation of an integrated tourism plan, opening up of border trade focused attention on developing oil and gas, etc. for boosting the CDR in the North-east.