Agartala, Dec 21 (IANS): The Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB) has posted a net profit of Rs 43.95 crore, the highest among the regional rural banks (RRBs) in eastern and northeastern India, during the last fiscal, the bank's chairman said here on Wednesday.
Supervised by United Bank of India (UBI), the TGB, one of India's 82 RRBs, has declared profit for the fourth consecutive years and the bank's current business volume rose to Rs 7,000 crore.
"The TGB has recorded a net profit of Rs 43.95 crore in 2015-16 fiscal. In the current financial year (2016-17), as on September 30, the bank achieved a profit of Rs 22.84 crore," TGB chairman Upendra Sabar told reporters.
He said: "The bank (TGB), with 156 branches including 12 ultra small branches (USB) across Tripura, has targeted a net profit of Rs 45 to 50 crore in the current fiscal (2016-17)."
The bank, which has over 70 per cent branches in the rural areas, also has Aadhaar enabled 225 micro ATMs and 190 business correspondents to hand out the money and other banking services at the door steps of the customers.
TGB, along with three other RRBs -- Assam Gramin Bank, Manipur Gramin Bank and Bangiya Gramin Bank in West Bengal, is sponsored by Kolkata-based UBI.
The bank has also registered a record in per branch business and per employee business with Rs 47.42 crore and Rs 8.83 crore, respectively, in the last financial year (2015-16).
Sabar accompanied by bank's general manager Dipankar Ambuly and development officer Bikash Roy Debbarma, said TGB is the first RRB in India to have been accorded permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to start treasury function of the Tripura government and open currency chest.
The bank celebrating 41st foundation day on Wednesday through various functions including special credit delivery camps across the state.
"All the 144 permanent branches of the TGB have come under the core banking services (CBS) and few more new branches would be opened in rural and remote areas within a year.
"With the gradual opening of bank branches and new services, the TGB is expected to increase its business exceeding the total business of all other nationalised banks, operating in Tripura," the bank chief said.
According to the bank chairman, the credit-deposit ratio (CDR) of TGB is 38 per cent while that of the other commercial banks in Tripura is 40 per cent. "Because there is no big industries in Tripura and we are also targeting small landing that's why the CDR is less compared to other parts of the country."
"In keeping with the directives of the RBI, the TGB has engaged several farmers' clubs, retired banks officials and societies as business facilitators (BF) and business correspondents (BC) to extend the banking services to unbanked rural and remote areas having population of above 2,000 or even below 2,000," he said.
The RBI has earlier asked all commercial banks and RRBs across India to open banking services, in any form, to every village in the country with a population of around 2,000.
TGB has issued several thousand biometric cards to disburse wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and pension under the National Old Age Pension (NOAP) schemes.
"The process is on to bring all the MNREGA and NOAP beneficiaries under biometric cards system to make their payment at the door step," he said.
The bank official said that to encourage entrepreneurship among the rural youth and to avoid guaranter system in getting loans from the bank, since last year the Gramin Bank has started forming Joint Liability Group (JLG) and so far 4,084 such groups were formed involving 17,170 people.
"Among the 4084 JLGs, Rs 46.28 crore have been disbursed with a recovery percentage of 98 per cent against general recovery rate of 65.66 per cent," Sabar added.