Jammu: Asserting that the banking sector is the backbone of Jammu and Kashmir’s growing economy, Lt Governor Manoj Sinha on Thursday said all the banks must increase lending to promote entrepreneurship in the Union Territory.
He asked public sector banks and other financial institutions to take dedicated measures to ensure government benefits directly reach the people.
“Banking sector is the backbone of J&K’s growing economy and collective efforts should be made to facilitate the common man, farmers, industries, self-help groups, and young entrepreneurs. Banks need to cooperate and complement the government’s efforts in reaching out to beneficiaries of all flagship schemes,” Sinha said.
According to an official press release, chairing a high-level meeting of public sector banks, administrative departments, and other financial institutions here, he said during the ‘Back to Village-4’ and ‘My Town My Pride’ programme, J&K Bank ensured a major share of 90 percent in extending the financial support to 75,000 youth recently, while other banks had merely 10 percent contribution.
“This situation needs to change. All the banks must increase lending to promote entrepreneurship amongst youth, women, and people from marginalised sections of society,” he said.
The LG emphasised on support and guidance to the farmers in preparing project reports required by the banks through nodal agencies.
He also called for regular meetings at the district level with mission youth and other government departments to understand requirements of diverse sectors.
The participants at the meeting were informed about the upcoming ‘citizen’s portal for government-sponsored schemes’.
The soon-to-be-launched portal, prepared by J&K Bank, will ensure that all the banks operating in Jammu and Kashmir seamlessly extend all the benefits of government schemes to the eligible beneficiaries, an official spokesman said.
The portal will enable a citizen to apply for government-sponsored schemes online with OTP authentication and check the status of his or her application online.
“It will forward/route the applications from citizens to appropriate departments & teams in an integrated workflow and enable departments and teams to process and forward/route these applications to the concerned financing agencies,” the spokesman said.
He said directions were passed to explore possibilities to integrate all the schemes and other portals on a single platform and make the portal more interactive, multilingual, and have a module of grievances redressal mechanism.
The LG also reviewed the progress achieved to extend the benefits of Kisan Credit Cards to all eligible farmers.
The banks were instructed to follow the delivery channels of RBI and saturate the distribution of smart cards to the KCC account holders by June, the spokesman said.
Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary; Atal Dulloo, Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture Production Department; Baldev Prakash, MD & CEO J&K Bank; Administrative Secretaries; HODs, Heads and representatives of several banks operating in the UT attended the meeting.
LG chairs meeting on widening of Amarnath Yatra tracks
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha today chaired a meeting of the officers from the UT administration and Border Roads Organization at Raj Bhavan here.
K N Rai, Member of Shri Amarnath Shrine Board; Shailendra Kumar, Principal Secretary, Public Works (R&B) Department; Brig Saket Singh, Chief Engineer, BRO; Akshay Labroo, Additional Secretary to LG, Rahul Singh, Additional Chief Executive Officer, SASB were present.
According to an official press release, during the meeting, the LG sought the details of the scope of work to be undertaken for the widening, restoration and maintenance of both the stretch of Yatra track that has been handed over to BRO.
It said the LG was apprised on the scope of work, surveyed via drone. The LG impressed upon the BRO to complete the works within the specified timeframe.
