According to the Reserve Bank's report on `Trend and Progress of Banking in India during the year 1997-98 and 1998-99', ICICI maintained the highest growth rate in total income, while IDBI witnessed a lower increase in "income from operations" during the same period. IFCI, incidentally is the worst off.

The RBI report said with the increase in interest expenses, there was an upward pressure on expenditures and as a result the profit after tax (PAT) for IDBI and IFCI witnessed a significant decline over the period 1997-98 to 1998-99.

The report said during the financial year 1998-1999, financial assistance sanctioned by the all-India financial institutions (AIFIs) amounted to Rs 90,040 crore showing a noticeable increase of 19.2 per cent on top of a sharp increase of 44.4 per cent in the previous year.

During the same period, disbursements amounted to Rs 55,854 crore reflecting an increase of 7.6 per cent compared with that of 28.9 per cent in 1997-98. "The deceleration in sanctions and disbursements by the AIFIs could be attributed to the slowdown of the economy in general and that of the industrial sector, in particular. During 1998-99 while sanctions for infrastructure projects by the AIDBs increased by 32.2 per cent, their disbursements declined by 5.6 per cent", the report said.

According to the Report, in 1998-99, financial assistance sanctioned and disbursed by IDBI, ICICI, IFCI, SIDBI and IIBI stood at 79,513 crore and Rs 46,352 crore respectively. These were higher by 20.6 per cent and 7.7 per cent respectively. "During the same period, sanctions and disbursements by investment institutions (UTI,LIC and GIC and its arms) registered increase of 11.1% and 7.8 % respectively", the report released on Monday said. The report said while financial assistance sanctioned by AIDBs showed moderate to sizeable increases, the disbursements failed to keep pace with the growth in sanctions.

"In particular, during 1998-99 disbursements by IDBI and IFCI showed noticeable declines of 5.1 per cent and 15.9 per cent respectively over the previous year. The share of IDBI and IFCI in financial assistance disbursed has come down during the period 1996-97 to 1998-99 while that of ICICI has shown a marked increase from 40.2% in 1996-97 to 50.1% in 1998-99.