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Not worried about Bihar Govt. warning: PNB

Patna: Public sector lender Punjab National Bank has said that Bihar Government’s warning to withdraw its deposits with commercial banks following slump in the credit deposit ratio (CDR) will not impact the bank.

“We are not afraid of it,” PNB Chairman and Managing Director K.C. Chakrabarty told reporters here while answering a query about the concerns expressed by the Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on the slump in the CDR to be maintained by commercial banks in the State.

CDR is the amount of bank’s loan divided by the amount of its deposits at any given time.

“The State Government is free to withdraw its deposits with us. We are not worried about it,” he said.

Public sector banks are giving credit but the deposits are being given to private banks, he said adding, “We are trying our best to boost credits but this can be possible when a State has a viable infrastructure.”

Citing the poor infrastructure in the State Mr. Chakrabarty said, “It took me four hours to reach my destination (Kochi panchayat under Gurua block in Gaya district) and the roads were so bad that I got a backache.”

On alleged corruption in issuing Kisan Credit Cards to farmers in Bihar, he said, “Though corruption is pervasive in the society, we have a mechanism to check it.”

He appealed to the people to cooperate with PNB by referring specific cases of bribe being sought by the bank officials.

The bank would take stern punitive action against those officials who are found to be involved in corruption, he added.

“Through financial inclusion, we are trying to bring the weaker and the downtrodden of the society in the fold of banking purview. We have major presence in 13 States of the Indo-Gangetic plains,” Mr. Chakrabarty said.

“We have 3,660 branches in these States and we are the leading bank in 57 districts. Nine regional rural banks sponsored by us are working in this region. We have opened eight farmers’ training centres in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu, and have trained 1.21 lakh participants, including 16,654 women,” he said.

Mr. Chakrabarty also spoke about launching specially designed rickshaws in Patna and said there were around 90 lakh rickshaw pullers in the country and the bank proposed to finance one lakh specially designed rickshaws for the them.

The PNB, he said, was also trying to rope in vegetable vendors as customers and “trying to reach every household in future”.

The CMD said PNB has bagged “Golden Peacock” instituted by Directors Institute, New Delhi, for excellent corporate governance.

The PNB, he said, was spread all over the country with total 4,540 branches in over 646 districts, of which 589 are in remote rural areas.

“In terms of branch expansion, we are computerised and 3,461 branches are connected with 1,475 core banking services branches. We are working on linking all our branches with CBS by March 2009,” he said. -- PTI

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