Are banks not cooperating with Jagan government for execution of welfare schemes?
By Gali Nagaraja| Published: 27th December 2020 10:05 pm IST A heap of garbage dumped is seen in front of a commercial bank in Vijayawada as a mark of protest over alleged failure of banks to finance YSR Congress Government’s flagship programme Jagananna Todu.
Amaravati: The heaps of garbage dumped at several commercial banks speak of an on-going “dirty” war involving the AP Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress and the BJP. As an offshoot, the bankers are unwittingly caught in an ugly slugfest surrounding several state and centrally sponsored welfare programmes.
December 17, 2020
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched an offline contactless payments feature for RuPay cardholders, it said in a press release on Wednesday. RuPay cardholders can now make offline payments at point-of-sale (PoS) devices using Near-Field-Communication (NFC) enabled cards in areas with limited network connectivity, it said.
Over the last few months, there has been a push by the NPCI and the Reserve Bank of India to encourage digital payments in an offline mode, particularly due to network connectivity issues in large parts of the country. In August this year, the RBI issued guidelines to payment system operators allowing them to launch pilot programs for small value offline payments. Further, the RBI recently allowed two companies to conduct pilot tests for offline payments solutions under its regulatory sandbox, while the NPCI has partnered with companies like ToneTag and Gupshup to launch a feature-phone based payments solution that can b
Disbursal of Mudra loans hits the slow lane in FY21
Hyderabad |
Updated on
G Naga Sridhar
The disbursal of small business loans under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) has been trailing so far in the current fiscal.
The disbursal of Mudra loans stood at ₹1,21,356 crore as on December 11, 2020, compared to about ₹1.51-lakh crore in the same period last year.
Covid impact
While the going appears slow for the small business loan scheme of the government compared to last year, bankers actually see it in positive light. “One has to factor in the impact of Covid-19 pandemic. Despite constraints like lockdown and difficulty in reaching out to people, the difference between last year and this year’s disbursal amount is not so huge,” said a senior official with State Bank of India.
The finance ministry noted that Rs 25,000 crore has been disbursed from Additional Emergency Working Capital Funding for farmers through NABARD. The government had announced a special re finance facility of Rs 30,000 crore sanctioned by NABARD during Covid -19 to Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and Cooperative Banks.