Madhukar in Calcutta on Thursday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta, Jan. 1: The Indian Banks’ Association will review the finances of the tea industry at a January 12 meeting that will explore ways to ease the strained credit flow, United Bank chief Madhukar said here today.

The IBA will also review the recommendations of a three-member committee headed by Madhukar on ways to provide funds to the sector on easier terms.

“The tea industry has requested the association to look into the financial aspect. The financial pattern in the north Indian tea sector varies from that of south India. So a pattern for the entire tea industry needs to be worked out. A fresh package is necessary.”

The tea industry has been going through a bad patch over the last four years. Cost of production has gone up while price realisation has gone down.

Banks that have exposures in the tea sector will attend the meeting called by the IBA. UBI has good exposure in the sector.

Madhukar, however, added that tea accounts have not created a problem for the bank. “None of them are non-performing assets (NPAs) till date,” he added.

UBI has been able to recover Rs 65 crore of hard-core NPAs which were due for 10-20 years. The bank has about Rs 675 crore of sticky loans. The total NPAs of the bank is Rs 875 crore. “We will be able to reduce sticky loans worth Rs 200 crore within this fiscal,” Madhukar said.

The bank’s advance portfolio is expected to touch Rs 9,000 crore by March end. As on December 31, 2003, the advances of the bank was to the tune of Rs 8,600 crore.

UBI call centre

UBI plans to set up a call centre and develop it into a separate profit-earning strategic business unit. The bank today launched a toll-free telephone line that customers can use to get information on the bank’s services and products. This facility will also be available in all bank branches.

“If this succeeds then we will come up with a full-fledged call centre,” Madhukar added.