NE BUSINESS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JULY 7
The public sector lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Monday said it has sanctioned Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) loans worth Rs 8,690 crores to the small businesses to help them come out of the COVID-19 pandemic heat. The bank MD and CEO CH. SS Mallikarjuna Rao informed about the same while addressing a live webinar with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.
Speaking on issues related to MSME customers across the country and to address their challenges in the face of COVID-19 pandemic, Rao said that Punjab National Bank has sanctioned Rs 8,690 crores in 4,04,675 accounts to MSME Sector under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) out of these accounts Rs.2,595 crores has already been disbursed in 79,029 accounts so far.
Agyey Kumar Azad, Executive Director at PNB said, “The pandemic has posed fresh challenges for the country’s economy, causing a severely disruptive impact on both demand and supply-side elements. This has the potential to derail the growth of the economy in the current and coming fiscal years. With the proactive approach of the Govt of India, RBI, and bank we hope that the outreach program will help our customers to understand the customised new product facilities, benefits, and special schemes offered by the bank to cope up with the crisis”.
About 25 participants, including the office-bearers of various MSME bodies, raised queries on ongoing issues, SS Mallikarjuna Rao gave his replies to all the queries to their satisfaction.
The PNB officials said that through the online platform of Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS), MSMEs can avail timely credits against their bills, which helps in managing their cash flows efficiently. In addition, the bank has communicated with a large number of MSME Associations, across the country seeking co-operation to educate the MSMEs under their ambit about the special schemes launched by the bank.
An important objective of the webinar was to educate its customers across the nation about the various products and services made available by the bank for their ease. Through the campaign ‘Each One Reach Ten Each Day’, more than 1.00 lac customers, including MSMEs, are being contacted by the officials to update about the COVID schemes on a daily basis.
