Mumbai, 28th December 2020 (GPN): The 152nd meeting of SLBC held on 28.12.2020 in the conference hall of Vidhana Soudha. The Executive Director of Canara Bank Ms Manimekhalai welcomed Shri. T M Vijay Bhaskar, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka, Smt. Vandita Sharma, Addl. Chief Secretary & Development Commissioner, GoK, Shri. Jose J Kattoor, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India, Shri Niraj Kumar Verma, Chief General Manager, NABARD, and other dignitaries, bankers and line department representatives for the meeting.

Speaking at the occasion, Ms Manimekhalai, Executive Director of Canara Bank, said, “Most economic activities are into normalcy except schools, colleges and large scale social gatherings. The agricultural sector has performed exceptionally well and remained the backbone of the economy during and after the lockdowns and hence, deserves all support. The immediate relief to the vulnerable and affected segments was to attend to, now it’s time reconstruct and rebuild our economy at the earliest thro’ various revival schemes of GOI, GoK, RBI, and NABARD like Agriculture Infrastructure fund, Coverage of 10,000 FPOs, Support for post-harvest storage, Formalization of Micro food processing Enterprises (FME) with ODOP-One District One Product concept.”

She further added that banks in the state, despite various issues, have already reached out to and delivered all the relief measures. While the state has been in the forefront in case of KCC-Dairy (139000 accounts) with 1st rank, MUDRA sanctions (2210350 accounts, Rs.13497crores) with 1st rank, PMEGP (1898 accounts) sanctions with 4th rank, Emergency Credit Line Guarantee scheme-PSBs (173359 accounts with Rs. 5123 crores) with 5th rank, Prime Minister Awas Yojana (61787 accounts) with 6th rank and it is in 7th position in case of PMSvanidhi scheme (79013 accounts sanctioned, 43824 accounts disbursed) in the country.

Further, she added that the initiative of GoK on Cyber Crimes & Financial Frauds is appreciable and SOP has already been circulated to all banks for suggestions. All banks are requested to operationalize the same at the earliest to safeguard the interests of the public. SLBC has finalized the formalities for advertising Ponzi schemes awareness advertisement on KSRTC buses.

She informed in the house that integration of FRUITS with banks was launched on 22.12.2020 at NABARD in two branches of Canara Bank – Nelamangala and Thavarekere branch. I request all the members to get onboarded for the benefit of all stakeholders in rural development.

She also informed that state as a whole has achieved 50% of ACP under MSME, 49.68 under Agriculture and 58.68 % under total credit for the second quarter. There is a Y-o-Y growth of 12.9 % in deposits and 8.74% in advances as on September 2020. Y-O-Y growth in priority sector advances is at 9.16 % and agriculture is at 9.17%.

She submitted and congratulated Bankers and Govt. Departments for their untiring efforts during testing times and request to take it forward to make up the losses during the remaining period of the financial year.

Finally, she expressed gratitude to Shri. T M Vijay Bhaskar, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka on behalf of SLBC who is due for retire on 30.12.2020 for his support to bankers.

About Canara Bank:

Widely known for customer centricity, Canara Bank was founded by Shri Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, a great visionary and philanthropist, in July 1906, at Mangaluru, then a small port town in Karnataka. Canara Bank is the fourth-largest public sector bank in the country after its amalgamation with Syndicate Bank in April 2020. At present, it is functioning with 10,498 Branches, and 13,023 ATMs throughout. The Bank has gone through various phases of its growth trajectory over the hundred years of its existence. The growth of Canara Bank was phenomenal, especially after nationalization in the year 1969, attaining the status of a national level player in terms of geographical reach and clientele segments. In June 2006, the Bank completed a century of operation in the Indian banking industry. The eventful journey of the Bank has been characterized by several memorable milestones. Today, Canara Bank occupies a premier position in the comity of Indian banks.