(From left) Chief secretary, Bihar, Anup Mukherjee, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, animal husbandry minister Giriraj Singh and co-operative minister Ramadhar Singh at the state-level bankers’ meet in Patna on Saturday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, March 5: The NDA government in the state today announced a slew of measures and initiatives to boost credit flow to spur economic growth.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, while reviewing the progress of loan disbursement under annual credit plan, expressed dissatisfaction on the performance of the banks vis-à-vis loan disbursement which has been just around 47 per cent of the total target of Rs 37,000 crore till the end of December 2010.

Animal husbandry and fisheries Giriraj Singh, co-operative minister Ramadhar Singh, chief secretary Anup Mukherjee, development commissioner K.C. Saha and agriculture production commissioner A.K. Sinha attended the meeting apart from bank officials of various banks and other government officials.

To promote credit flow into the hands of farmers, small and medium businessmen and entrepreneurs, the state government has taken steps to plug the loopholes in the banking system, which deprive common and needy persons from getting loans.

“The government has decided to hold a bank panchayat in May where people will get senior bank officials across with their common problems and complaints. The institutional finance department has launched a website apart from setting up a toll-free number and post office, where people can lodge their complaints relating to banking and we will forward it to the banks for redressal,” Modi said.

Modi, who also holds the finance portfolio, said: “Though the loan disbursement of Rs 17,449 crore under annual credit plan (till December 2010) may seem very less in comparison to the target of annual credit plan which is Rs 37,000 in the current fiscal but we have actually matched last year’s total disbursement of loans which was Rs 17536.89 crore.”

To pump in more credit, the government has decided to hold mega farm loan fairs in May and June for kharif crop and in October-November for rabi crop.