Agartala: The Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB), first among India’s 45 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), in the 19 consecutive years has posted a net profit of Rs 44.43 crore in the first half of the current fiscal and envisaged to cross Rs 10,000 crore business in 2019-20, a top bank official said on Saturday.
According to the TGB Chairman Mahendra Mohan Goswami, the bank has been doing profit since 2001-02, first of its kind among India’s 45 RRBs and in the first six months (April-September) of the ongoing financial year, the bank posted a net profit of Rs 44.43 crore against Rs 11.36 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal (2018-19).
India had earlier 56 RRBs. Many of them amalgamated among themselves or merged with their sponsor banks. Goswami said that the TGB in the last fiscal (2018-19) had secured a record net profit of Rs 125.45 crore which was the highest ever since the bank’s existence in 1976 and also crossed the business of Rs 9,000 crore.
Goswami said: “The bank currently has 160 branches including 12 Ultra Small Branches (USB) across Tripura. The deposit increased by 8.94 per cent and crossed Rs 6617 crore as on September 30, from Rs 6073.81 crore on September 30 last year.”
The bank’s Credit Deposit Ratio (CDR) currently stood at 40.60 per cent against the national banks’ CDR of 66 per cent. The bank, which covered over 75 per cent of Tripura’s population, mostly in the rural and interior areas, also has Aadhaar-enabled 225 micro ATMs and 192 business correspondents to hand out money and other banking services at the doorsteps of customers.
The TGB is the first RRB in India to have been accorded permission by the RBI to start treasury function of the Tripura government and open a currency chest.
To encourage entrepreneurship among the rural youth and avoid the guarantor system in getting loans from the bank, the Gramin Bank has started forming Joint Liability Group (JLG), and so far around 6,000 such groups were formed involving over 20,000 people.
The TGB has been implementing all flagship programmes of the central government including the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana.
Meanwhile, Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said that the credit-deposit ratio of the nationalised banks in Tripura increased by 18 per cent to 66 per cent from 48 per cent in the 20-month of the BJP rule.
However, it was still below the national average, said the Chief Minister while addressing a function here.
