Sundarayya in Kerala


his last Statement to shareholders, S L Kirloskar, Chairman of the Bank of Maharashtra, was complaining about the requirement regarding opening of branches! Banks' lending to small-scale industries is meagre (the major lender being the State Bank). As at March-end 1966, such lending was about Rs 90 crores, against about Rs 1,300 crores to industry as a whole and Rs 500 crores to commerce. And this despite the existence of a guarantee scheme to encourage such lending. And banks have not made any headway in financing agriculture at all, the figure at the end of March 1966 being less than Rs 5 crores. The Rural Credit Survey had found that out of a total credit of Rs 700 crores banks provided less than one per cent to agriculture in the early fifties: a re- survey in the early sixties showed no improvement in the position. In short the banks' philosophy in the last fifteen years has been "business as usual".