Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has laid stress on improving Credit-Deposit (CD) in North-Eastern States and lending to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). She said as MSME is an important sector for the economy of the Northeastern states, greater thrust on lending to MSME will be given by both public sector banks and RRBs as well. 

Sitharaman, who was on a two day visit to Tripura, chaired a review meeting of the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) of North-Eastern states in Agartala on Friday.

In the meeting, discussions were held on financial performance of the regional rural banks and their performance in flagship schemes of the central government such as PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, PM Surakhsha Bima Yojana, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, PM Mudra Yojana, Kishan Credit Card etc.

The Finance Minister asked the RRBs to work towards meeting the credit requirements of rural people of the North Eastern states. As most of the people in the Northeast region are engaged in agri-allied activities such as animal husbandry and fisheries, Union Minister Smt Sitharaman asked the regional rural banks to focus on lending under Kishan Credit Card for allied activities for meeting the credit requirements of such people. 

In a series of tweets on the meeting of RRBs on Friday, the office of the Union Finance Minister has highlighted the main points of discussion of the meeting. In the meeting, the Finance Minister said, a roadmap has to be prepared within 30 days which indicates interventions each RRB has to make to improve their performance in areas where performance is not up to the mark and targets for next 90 days to be given to RRBs to demonstrate improvement.

In the review meeting, Secretary of the Department of Financial Services and Chairman of SBI and NABARD and top officials and representatives from other banks and senior government officials of the North Eastern states were present.