CHENNAI: The following are among the major initiatives announced in the annual statement of policy by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) relating to sectors like export finance, corporate borrowers, urban cooperative banks, priority sector lending and consumers.

RBI will constitute a working group to examine the recommendations of the R. H. Patil Expert Committee on Corporate Bonds and Securitisation.

Authorised Dealers will be allowed to grant extension of time to realize export proceeds up to $1 million beyond the prescribed period of six months. (Till now this ceiling was at $100,000).

Authorised Dealers can allow remittances towards initial and recurring expenses of branch offices of Indian entities up to five per cent and ten per cent, respectively, of the average annual sales/income or turnover during the preceding two accounting years. An advisory group headed by Mohandas Pai will be set up to review all foreign exchange regulations relating to services and make suggestions for further clarification or simplification and prepare a compendium of foreign exchange regulations that apply to the services sector.

Convenors of SLBCs (State Level Bankers Committees) in all States and Union Territories will be advised to take steps to achieve 100 per cent financial inclusion (by providing no-frills accounts and General Purpose Credit Cards) on the lines of the initiative taken in Pondicherry.

RBI will constitute a working group to formulate a scheme for ensuring reasonableness of bank charges and to incorporate the same in the Fair Practices Code. RBI also proposes to make it obligatory for banks to display and update, in their offices/branches as also on their websites, details of service charges in a format to be prescribed by the apex bank.

NCAER has been entrusted with studying the quality of service rendered by bank branches in rural and semi-urban areas.

RBI proposes to place revised draft proposals on review of the policy on priority sector lending based on the feedback received on the recommendations of the technical paper of its internal working group headed by C. S. Murthy.

The apex bank will constitute a working group to identify alternative instruments for augmenting the capital funds of urban cooperative banks. It also proposes to allow well-managed scheduled and non-scheduled UCBs to open select off-site/on-site ATMs based on the recommendation of the respective task force for UCBs in States.

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