SHGs owe Rs 11,000cr to banks

Banks supporting self-help groups (SHGs) are facing recovery problems and have sent a SOS to the government.

About 10 lakh SHG groups now owe a total of about Rs 11,000 crore.

Mr R.S. Reddy, chairman and managing director of Andhra Bank and president of the State-Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) revealed this at the 169th meeting of the committee and sought the support of the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, in securing repayment.

“In recent times, there is a slight slackness on the recovery side. I request the government to extend their support to banks for improving recovery and in capacity building of the self-help groups to help them in taking up economic activities,” Mr Reddy said.

He said the matter was being discussed by the steering committee and steps for recovery were being initiated by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP).

“However, the response from some of the field-level functionaries is not encouraging. For sustaining the movement, good recovery is extremely important,” he said.

Mr Rosaiah said the performance under self-help groups bank linkage was very slow.

As against the target of Rs 9,000 crore for 2009-2010, the achievement so far was Rs 5,056, or just 58 per cent, he said.

- Reddy.