Gujarat: Bankers on loan spree this festival season

Bankers want you to take loans during this festive season and so they are beginning a massive outreach exercise in October. They will showcase their loan products across retail, agriculture and MSME sector in order to woo clients. However, they are not offering any concessions or discounts to the clients.

K V Tulshibagwale, general manager of Ahmedabad Zone for Bank of Baroda told media persons in the city that it will hold camps in eight districts while Union Bank of India and Corporation Bank will hold camps in two and one district respectively. "All other banks including private banks, NBFCs, Housing Finance Companies as well as Micro Finance Institutions have also been invited to participate in this initiative. They will also put their stall and display their products," said a note of Bank of Baroda. Organisations like Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) have also been invited.

Bank officials said that the perception that banks do not have funds is wrong, in fact there are not many takers for loans, they claim. When asked if such lending spree will increase bad loans, they said that there will be no compromise on merit for approving and disbursing loans.

Recently in July, banks had conducted a massive exercise of interaction with own staff to understand the bottlenecks in loans and it was decided to increase loans in retail, agriculture and MSMEs.

Sunil Motwani, vice president of Relief Road Electronics Market Association said that this initiative will bring liquidity in the market, which will in turn kick start the economy. However, he has a word of caution. "Banks should be very diligent in approving the loans or else after two or three years, these will turn into bad loans and depositors' money will be at stake. This should not happen. The initiative will increase the spending and give boost to trade," he said. Motwani feels that the shopping festivals by e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart are hurting offline traders because, products are offered at predatory pricing. "Here the selling price is lower than the cost of the product. Such sellers are making losses. How long they will survive?" asked Motwani.