CHANDIGARH, May 7: The total deposits of Chandigarh circle of Canara Bank have crossed Rs 2000 crore figure and total business of over Rs 2700 crore as on date.

During an interview with The Financial Express, Kamalakar M Shet, deputy general manager of the bank claimed that advances to the priority sector were more than Rs 300 crore constituting 42.3 per cent of total credit against the stipulated norm of 40 per cent by the Reserve Bank of India.

The number of beneficiaries was about 53,000. The advances to the agriculture sector were around Rs 130 crore forming 19 per cent of total credit against the stipulated norm of 18 per cent with 32,000 farmers having been assisted.

The number of small scale units assisted by the Canara Bank, Chandigarh circle comprising states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and union territory of Chandigarh were about 4400.

Advances to the tune of Rs 130 crore covering 26,000 beneficiaries had been given by the bank until now. Shet claimed that the minority communities advances were about Rs 130 crore covering 26,000 beneficiaries. Under the prime minister's Rozgar Yojna,loans to 907 unemployed youth had been sanctioned in 1996-97 against target of 867 cases.

Assistance provided to the weaker sections was about Rs 28 crore covering 28,000 beneficiaries. He agreed in reply to a question that advances did not match the deposits as the credit to deposit ratio was about 35 per cent or about Rs 700 crore and in Punjab it was even lesser at 30 per cent.

Significantly the CD ratio of the bank as a whole was about 55 per cent. He disclosed that at present there were about 166 branches of the bank in Chandigarh region, including 93 in Punjab, 51 in Haryana,10 in Himachal Pradesh and nine in Chandigarh.

There were specialised SSI branches in Faridabad, Panchkula, Jalandhar,Ludhiana and Mohali, industrial finance branch at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh, agriculture finance(hi-tech) at Ludhiana and Karnal.Specialised savings branch at Chandigarh, overseas branch at Ludhiana, NRI branch at Jalandhar and eight other in rural places and a consumer finance branch at Chandigarh-the only of its kind.

About the future plans, Shet said that the bank would shortly open branches at Millerganj in Ludhiana,in phase four of Mohali and NRI branches at Kotfatuhi in Hoshiarpur and Mukandpur in district Nawanshahar.

During the year, it plans to open 20 new branches in Punjab, 11 in Haryana and two in Chandigarh. The DGM said that seven branches in the region had been fully computerised and 29 partially. Plans were afoot to computerise another 10 branches during 1997-98. About specialised branches, he said that there were plans to open five more saving bank specialised branches at Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Jammu,Pathankot and in Chandigarh.

These branches would cater basically to the banking needs of household and individual sector and provide them with all banking facilities such as deposit accounts, lockers, consumer durable loans, loans against term deposits etc.

He made it clear that these branches would not cater to commercial and industry sectors. About achievements of the bank, Shet said that a centre for entrepreneurship development had been set up at Chandigarh which aims at identifying, motivating women beneficiaries.

It has provided them training on textile designing, in beauty culture, general awareness programme, paper designing, exhibition-cum-sale of products of women beneficiaries etc. He said that with a view to strengthen our presence at major business centres and to take care of the needs of varied clientele, the bank has identified Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Panipat and Ambala. Shet did not agree that private sector banks had posed a real threat to nationalised banks and said that in fact the private banks had ``not made much inroads'' and deposits of nationalised banks were soaring.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.