Image for representational purposes only. , Photo credit: The Hindu Businessline
Former West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra in a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman raised the issue of rejection of 40,000 bank applications of weavers and artisans in West Bengal.
“You would be surprised to know that in West Bengal alone, out of 15,298 weavers who applied for loans, 10,108 faced rejection by banks – between April 2022 and September 2022 (a period of six months), 66 % surprise rate, rejection rate. said Mr. Mitra, who is also the principal chief advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as the state’s finance department.
He also said that all the applications which have been rejected have been verified by the District Industries Centers (DICs) as required by the banks and those who applied had Weaver Credit Cards.
“Similarly, out of 48,153 applications for loans from artisans of the state, 29,656 applications were rejected by the banks – again an astonishing 62% rejection rate. These artisans have also gone through scrutiny by DIC and were artisans’ credit card holders,” Mr Mitra said in the letter.
He said that it had become clear in the State Level Bankers’ Committee that the reason for such a huge rejection by the banks was a notification by the Government of India, which made various requirements including “PAN card etc” mandatory even for these micro weavers and artisans. Unfortunately, RBI has also issued a similar stern notification.
Mr. Mitra said that these notifications from the Government of India and the RBI have barred bankers from lending to micro enterprises, which has led to large scale rejection. The former Finance Minister of West Bengal said that the Chief Secretary of the state had raised the issue in the presence of the Prime Minister in Delhi.
The letter states, “Therefore, I humbly request you to persuade both the RBI and the MSME department of the Government of India to rectify the information and allow self-certification by micro weavers and artisans for bank loan applications “
Calling for financial inclusion of entrepreneurs from the bottom of the pyramid, Mr Mitra said that if weavers and artisans in West Bengal faced 40,000 bank loan rejections, the number of such rejections would be five to 10 lakh Can country as a whole.