BANK OF INDIA-Financing Priority Sectors

Financing Priority Sectors BANK OF INDIA is the first nationalised bank to cross the Rs 10,000 crore mark for deposits, which it did by end-December 1987. Releasing the balance sheet and profit and loss accounts for 1987, R Srinivasan, chairman and managing director, stated that the bank added Rs 1,613 crore to global deposits which attained a level of Rs 10,532 crore at the year end. The global advances portfolio increased by Rs 1,114 crore to Rs 6,362 crore. Aggregate deposit growth in India was 18.1 per cent, compared with an estimated 16.1 per cent for the banking system. Advances ifi India increased by Rs 407 crore. Taking into account the decline in food credit, the deployment in non-food sectors amounted to Rs 571 crore. Over 70 per cent of the increase in credit was in priority sectors and exports. Lending to priority sectors reached Rs 1,790 crore and covered 1.5 million borrowal accounts. The priority sector lending ratio has gone up from 42.2 per cent in 1986 to 46 per cent in 1987 and the ratio of advances to weaker sections increased from 10 per cent to 10.6 per cent. The ratio of direct finance to agriculture has reached 18 per cent. In the field of rural development, the bank has framed area-specific credit schemes of an innovative nature. A record growth has been achieved in export financing. The outstanding export credit as well as export credit turnover registered an increase of 43 per cent to the level of Rs 318 crore and Rs 1,723 crore, respectively. The bank has provided increasing quantum of credit to various fast growing areas of export, including diamonds, in respect of which the sanctioned credit limits have gone up by