Himachal Pradesh State Co-operative Bank will launch a special drive to recover its bad debts. In order to redeem its Non-performing assets (NPA), the bank will offer a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme from May 5 onwards.
Harsh Mahajan, Chairman, HPSCB said that the Him Rin Niwaran Yojana-II was being launched to bring down the NPAs that belong to chronic defaulter borrowers accounts categorised on or before March 31, 2011.
Under the scheme, attractive discounts are being offered to the borrowers both from farming and non-farming community, said Mahajan. The scheme would be applicable to cases that fall under exceptional category due to death of the borrower or some other reason.
He said that no interest would be charged on the settled amount due on borrower, after allowing discounts under the scheme, if paid within three months from the settlement.
As another boost for the borrowers, two percent incentive would be given to the borrower if the lumpsum amount settled under the scheme is paid within a month of the settlement.
However, the borrowers will have to pay 10 percent interest on the settled amount, if the amount is paid after 3 months or in monthly instalments, but the borrowers would not be given a time limit of more than a year to clear the debt.
Anticipating significant reduction in bank’s NPA through the scheme, Mahajan said that a similar scheme had been introduced earlier and the bank had brought down its NPA to 5.45 percent as on 2016-17.