Finance Minister urges RRBs to speed up digitisation to ensure better services in rural areas

financialexpress.com:

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday expressed concern over the slow progress of computerisation in Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and urged them to speed up the process to strengthen credit delivery in rural areas.There is still a lot of work to do in digitising RRBs and cooperative banks, she said after launching the ‘Kisan Rin Portal’ and Weather Information Network Data Systems (WINDS) manual here.Cooperative banks are not equally endowed, and their financial health varies, she said, adding ramping up capacity in the sector is taking place under the Ministry of Cooperation headed by Home Minister Amit Shah.

The cooperative bank digitisation would happen with the necessary speed, she said.However, she said, “I am more concerned about RRBs, their digitisation and computerisation. Therefore, if they didn’t have it, extending phone bank facility…or internet banking facility…won’t work out”.A lot of work is still pending, and the Department of Financial Services is sensitising them to achieve computerisation at a fast pace, Sitharaman said.Observing that rural India kept the economy going during the severe COVID-19 lockdown, the minister said the farmer and agriculture sector is given high importance by the government.Surprised by the huge difference between sanction and disbursement by cooperative banks, she asked the DFS to find out the reason for this.However, the difference between sanction and disbursement is low in the case of scheduled commercial banks.Speaking at the occasion, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the various measures taken by the government have enhanced farmers’ income.

The Budget allocation for the ministry has gone up multi-fold since 2013-14 as the government led by Prime