Bhubaneswar, May 26: The state government has asked the state-level bankers’ committee — a bankers’ forum — to take steps to set up banks in all the gram panchayats of the state.

At present, the state doesn’t have banks in 4,597 out of its 6,236-gram panchayats.

Attending the 135th meeting of the committee, additional chief secretary and finance secretary U.N. Behera said: “The committee should provide a plan outlay to all the leading banks within seven days on the opening of more banks in gram panchayats of the state.”

According to Behera, the banks will prepare their action plan within a month and later it will be reported to the state government through the committee. The banks should prepare their branch-opening plan in gram panchayats and decide the probable date of opening.

According to the plan, the banks will be opened within the next three years. The state has approximately 46,000 villages without banks with population below 2,000. As on March 31, banks have covered 16,400 of these villages that constitute 73.25 per cent of the target of 22,387. Out of this, 316 villages are covered with bank facilities and rest by branch-less mode. The state government has also asked the banks to focus on providing more loans to the farmers.

“The share of private banks financing agriculture allied sector is negligible. All banks, especially private sector banks should give more importance fro credit delivery to different schemes of allied sector,” said an official.

A bank official said that the low percentage of recovery of loan had adversely affected the flow of credit to small, marginal farmers and agricultural labourers.

“The overall recovery position of banks dues in the state is most unsatisfactory,” official said. The aggregate of agricultural advance extended by banks in Odisha is Rs 27,366.79 crore as of March this year.