RAJYA SABHA
The Reserve bank of India (RBI) on 20th May 2005, has advised all Scheduled Commercial Banks and SLBC Convenor banks to initiate early implementation of a scheme for “Small Enterprises Financial Centres (SEFCs)”. Under the scheme, banks are encouraged to establish mechanisms for better co-ordination between their branches and branches of SIDBI which are located in the clusters identified by the Ministry of Small Scale Industries for co-financing of SME sector (including tiny and services sector) on mutually agreeable operational modalities to be worked out by SIDBI and the strategic partner banks. The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SDBI) had initially decided to implement the scheme in 149 clusters and has so far executed MOU with 9 banks.
Credit extended to SSI sector by the public sector banks has gone up from Rs.52988 crores in the year 2003 to Rs.67634 crores in the year 2005. the share of net bank credit to total credit of public sector banks stood at above 9% as on March 31, 2005. To further step up credit to small and medium enterprises, Government have announced a policy package on August 10, 2005 which seeks to double the flow of credit to these enterprises over the next five years.
This information was given by Shri S.S. Palanimanickam, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance in reply to the questions raised by Shrimati
Maya Singh in Rajya Sabha today.
BY/VV/AN
(Release ID :14172)