Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

13-December-2012 18:48 IST

As per extant guidelines of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Priority Sector Lending (PSL), all Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) including Nationalised Banks are required to earmark 10% of Adjusted Net Bank Credit (ANBC) or Credit Equivalent amount of Off-Balance Sheet Exposure, whichever is higher, for Weaker Sections. Loans at concessional rate of interest are provided, inter-alia, under different schemes:

i) The Interest Subvention Scheme is being implemented by the Government of India since 2006-07 to make short term crop loans upto Rs. 3 lakhs for a period of one year available to farmers at the interest rate of 7% per annum. The Government of India has since 2009-10 been providing additional interest subvention to prompt payee farmers, i.e, those who repay their loans in time. The additional subvention was 1% in 2009-10, 2% in 2010-11 and 3% in 2011-12. Interest subvention of Rs. 3282.70 crore was released by the Government in the year 2011-12, under this scheme. The Scheme is continuing in 2012-13 also.

ii) Under Differential Rate of Interest (DRI) Scheme, the banks provide loans to poor borrowers at concessional rate of interest of 4% per annum. The credit outstanding of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) under the Scheme was Rs. 729.03 crore for the year ended March, 2012.

iii) Full interest subsidy is made available for educational loans disbursed by scheduled banks on or after 1st April, 2009, during the period of moratorium for the students belonging to economically weaker sections, under ‘Interest Subsidy’ scheme of Ministry of Human Resource Development. Interest subsidy of Rs. 1616.42 crore has been released upto 30.09.2012 under the scheme.

This was stated by the Hon’ble Minister of Finance Shri P. Chidambaram in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

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DSM/RS/ka

Priority sector lending mandate secures bank allocation for weaker sections; concessional interest schemes support crop, education, and DRI loans. Scheduled commercial banks are required under the priority sector lending framework to earmark a portion of Adjusted Net Bank Credit for weaker sections. To operationalise concessional lending, the Government administers an Interest Subvention Scheme for short-term crop loans with additional subvention for prompt payers, a Differential Rate of Interest (DRI) Scheme providing concessional loans to poor borrowers, and an Interest Subsidy for educational loans granting full interest relief during the moratorium for economically weaker students.