11,000 officers already trained on lending to small firms
MUMBAI: RBI has proved its point that it is not averse to providing liquidity to MSMEs, and as part of a bigger plan the central bank has trained 11,000 officers at various commercial banks on lending to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), according to reports.
This move gains significance as the news has come at a time when a debate is going on whether the RBI should do more to ease credit to MSMEs. This training has been provided to officers working at nearly 3,000 bank branches covering all districts in India through more than 2,000 special workshops in the last three years, officials said.
These are mostly specialised bank branches catering to the MSME sector where this multi-level training has been provided, covering branch managers, senior officers and even faculty members of staff colleges, who can further pass on the training to the bank employees.
Most importantly, the training exercise was executed in consultation with the government, including with the active involvement of the MSME ministry and the RBI’s objective has been to create a conducive environment to help these small entrepreneurs and companies avail easy and faster credit, officials said.
“The officers have also been provided special kits to help their banks extend more credit to MSMEs, while they have also been trained on behaviourial issues to deal with such borrowers with utmost care,” the report added.
The RBI’s central board will meet on Monday where the government nominees and some independent members are expected to take on Governor Urjit Patel and his team on various issues including norms for the MSME credit.
The RBI is, however, of the view that its policies are very much in favour of easier credit to MSMEs and it has always been making efforts to make further relaxations for such borrowers, sources said.
The main concern of the central bank is about some big corporates misusing the NPA relaxations for ‘ever-greening’ of their loans, they said.
