Mysuru:  MPs R. Dhruvanarayan and Pratap Simha demanded that bank officers from North India and other parts who are posted to Karnataka must learn Kannada and they should be given training in order to communicate with customers of even rural areas.

They were reacting to the complaints and notices issued to the banks by Kannada Development Authority, at the District Lead Bank review meeting held this morning at the Zilla Panchayat auditorium.

Dhruvanarayan said that under the ‘Stand Up India’ scheme all that the private banks have done is to collect deposits from the government schemes but have not bothered to initiate them by disbursing loans to at least one ST or SC or one woman borrower.

There are allegations that education loans are also not being given to students. “This is the time when students are seeking admission to various courses like engineering, medicine, MBA, BA, B.Sc. BBM but the banks are hesitating to give loans even though there are schemes meant for them. Hence, the student community should not be neglected,” said Dhruvanarayan.

Similarly even the Micro, Medium and Small Enterprises (MSME) sector are being ignored by bank managers, he charged.

Pratap Simha said that there are many Central schemes like Fasal Bhima and MUDRA and other development projects which are not being implemented and subsidies denied to selected beneficiaries.

The distribution of crop loan is stuttering and not reaching the beneficiaries, he said. Lead Bank Manager D. Shivalingaiah replying said that there are many crops like tobacco, sugarcane, sesame seeds and a few others have not been notified. Hence, if there is crop loss, the insurance companies do not settle their claims. Replying to it, Pratap Simha and Dhruvanarayan said that such insurance companies should be blacklisted.

Pratap Simha called for promoting different schemes by organising melas and setting up Helplines. He asked the Managers to be proactive and humanitarian in their approach by giving loans to eligible applicants like farmers instead rejecting the applications.

Two Bank Managers from SBI Sargur and IOB Kaulande were taken to task because of the complaints received against them.

ZP CEO P. Shivashankar, SBI DGM Mahendra Kumar, Kaveri Grameena Bank GM Parthasarathy, Nataraj from Reserve Bank of India and all nationalised bank Managers were present.

Lead Bank Manager Shivalingaiah who is retiring this month was felicitated on the occasion.