MANGALORE: The South Canara District Central Cooperative Bank (SCDCC Bank) has received the first prize from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for forming the largest number of self-help groups in the country.

First prize

Disclosing this to presspersons here on Monday president of the bank M.N. Rajendra Kumar said NABARD had announced its first prize to the bank for its efforts in forming "Navodaya" self-help groups.

Self-help groups

He said that the bank had formed 20,000 self-help groups in the State of which 16,036 were in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts and there were 1,40,000 members.

The rest were in Uttara Kannada, Dharwad, Mysore and Shimoga districts, he said.

The bank had realised deposits amounting to Rs. 20 crore and lent Rs. 42 crore. Women were managing 75 per cent of the self-help groups, he said.

Loans

Mr. Kumar said only 12,778 self-help groups had taken loans while others were managing with their own savings.

The bank followed the norms of NABARD in extending credit to self-help groups, he said.

Many self-help groups, which had overshot their savings and income, had taken up socially relevant projects such as bus shelters and anganawadi buildings, Mr. Kumar said. He said that the bank had lent Rs. 400 crore to implement various agro and rural development programmes.

Recovery

For the 11th year in succession, the bank had achieved 100 per cent recovery of agricultural loans, which was yet another achievement, he said.

Mr. Kumar said the bank would organise a "mela" to market the products made by self-help groups in the district in October. Efforts were on to utilise central funding for giving export linkage to their products, he added.

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