Rs 64 crore worth of loan has become bad loan in Vananchal Gramin bank (VGB) in Palamu and about 10, 000 borrowers have become willful defaulters in many years of the functioning of the bank.
Sources said that asset turning into non profitable one is much faster than the recovery amount.
Regional Manager (RM) VGB Palamu N C Shukla said recovery drive has been launched wherein defaulter borrowers are being asked to repay the loans before more harsh actions get underway against them like seizure and locking up of assets, institution of cases under public demand recovery act commonly known as certificate caseetc.
Shukla said, “We are giving good relief to such defaulter borrowers if they come forward to repay the loans faster now. If the asset for which they took loan is now lost such a defaulter borrower will not have to pay any interest on it and further there will be a 10 per cent relief in the principal loan amount. This is a big offer and a borrower must make a use of it in his interest.”
He said, “We are asking for OTS ( one time settlement) of bad loans which will save the defaulter borrowers many a hardship and their precious time.”
Shukla further said, “Now our VGB has come on such a civil hook wherein a defaulter borrower of our bank cannot knock at any other bank for loan as till recently our defaulter borrower used to take loans from other banks too despite being a defaulter with us but now with this civil hooking of our VGB a defaulter borrower is a bad borrower for other banks too and is sure to get a no from other banks in matters of loans.”
RM said that Kissan Credit cards have played a major role in the upswing of NPA (Non profitable asset). He said KCC borrowers just wait and wait for waiving of loans when the elections are around as it has been seen that waiving of loans of farmers is given all priority in the poll manifesto of political parties and some state governments do announce waiving of such loans which trigger a hope elsewhere that such a waving will also be coming their way and thus repayment of loans gets a back seat.
Shukla said, “Out of our 64 crore bad loans it will be no exaggeration if I say that Rs 32 crore is loan under KCC and here the borrowers are waiting and waiting for a waiver from the state government.”
Election time or election in the offing is the time of NPA for the banks he said with conviction.
RM was critical of his VGB branches at Chhaterpur, Harihurganj, Vishrampur and even Arhat town branch which have plunged into bad loan branch. He said there is a whole network of middlemen who promise loan and unscrupulous bankers too join hands in this game.
The RM agreed that some extremists or their families are among the bad borrowers of our loan as these people have managed loans by flaunting their extremists connections.