Page 58 - economic review

MACRO ECONOMIC PROFILE30

Fig 1.12
Credit Deposit Ratio of the Public Sector Banks in Kerala

Credit Flow to the Priority Sectors

1.86 Priority sectors are those sectors that impact large sections of the population, the weaker
sections and the sectors which are employment-intensive such as agriculture, and tiny and small
enterprises. The categories under priority sector include agriculture, micro & small enterprises,
education, housing, export credit and others.
1.87 During the financial year 2013-14, Priority Sector Advances increased by `14,237crore as against
`13,712 crore added during the corresponding period of previous fiscal. Against the mandatory norm
of 40% under priority sector advances, as at 31st March 2014, 59.14 percent of the total advances
of the banks in the State were to priority sector. The priority sector advances to total advances of the
State have recorded an increase of 242 basis points from March 2013 to 2014(SLBC: 2014).

Housing Loans

1.88 During 2013-14, banks in Kerala including private sector banks sanctioned an amount of
`28,426 crore to 7,52,152 beneficiaries as housing loan against `26,639 crore to 7,15,797 benefi-
ciaries during 2012-13 (SLBC: 2014) showing 6.70 percent growth in total housing loan sanctioned.

Educational Loans

1.89 In order to support students from economically weaker sections of the society, Department of
Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India has launched an interest
subsidy scheme. The MoHRD has appointed Canara Bank as the Nodal Bank for the Scheme. At the
end of March 2014, `9,199 crore was sanctioned to 3,90,237 students and the percentage increase
of education loan and beneficiaries during March 2013 was 10.9 and 2.61 respectively over the
last year (SLBC: March- 2014).The Ministry of Finance has finalized the modalities of the Credit
Guarantee Fund Trust (CGFT) for Higher Education to be set up with a corpus of `2500 crore. The
high point of the credit guarantee trust initiative is that the students (with annual family income below
`4.5lakh) will be able to avail education loans up to `7.5lakh without giving any collateral security or
third party guarantee.

Kerala State Planning Board