The finance minister of Orissa, Shri Prafulla Chandra Ghadai has questioned the private sector banks operating in the State on the reason for their lack of participation in the financial inclusion plan of the Reserve Bank of India.

Speaking at the 121st meeting of State Level Bankers' Committee (SLBC), he said, "The private banks are not participating in the Financial Inclusion Plan of the state. These private sector banks are also not participating in the government sponsored programmes like Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) and Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). Also, their advances to the the agriculture sector and weaker sections of the society are far below the stipulations of RBI."

As per data compiled by RBI, the total lending by private sector banks towards agricultural credit amounted to only 11.59%. He also pointed that the credit deposit (CD) ratio of some of these banks was much below the RBI standard of 60%.

"There are 1878 unbanked villages in the state with a population of over 2000 and all these villages need to have access to banking network by March 2011. The RBI has already sanctioned the opening of bank branches in some of the rural areas but the banks are yet to set up a branch", he said.

Speaking on the occasion, N R Badrinarayan , executive director, UCO Bank and chairman, SLBC said, "The banks operating in Orissa have registered a growth of 22.9 per cent in deposits and 23.01 per cent in advances from September 2009 to September 2010. The CD ratio which has been on the decline has shown a marginal improvement to reach 63.78 per cent by the end of September. The advances to the SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) sector have been 12.7 per cent of the total advances."