The Hindu 30.07.2010
Concern over housing scheme implementation
Staff Reporter
MADURAI: Collector C. Kamaraj came down heavily on the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB), Town Panchayat and Municipal Department officials for the poor implementation of a Centrally-sponsored affordable housing scheme.
Addressing a Standing Committee meeting for banking development here on Monday, he said that the progress in execution of the Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing Urban Poor (ISHUP) for which TNEB is the nodal agency was very lacklustre.
Taking the officials to task for having sent only 913 applications to banks when the target for Madurai district in the current financial year was 5,260, he said that he was contemplating writing to the Managing Director of the TNHB.
Pointing out that the target areas had high population, he demanded a proper explanation from the officials for this inadequate performance despite the scheme having been operational for three months. Stating that the “efforts were lacking on part of the local body officials,” he said that monthly targets would be fixed from now on.
RBI directive
He also expressed unhappiness over the slow progress of banks in Madurai in implementing a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directive to provide financial services to unbanked villages with population above 2,000 before March, 2011.
He said that the district administration would come down heavily on the banks if the targets were not met. He extracted a firm commitment from the representatives of the public sector banks over which date they would cover the villages allotted to them.
Reviewing the progress of Madurai Aavin in executing ‘Integrated Dairy Farm for Women Self-Help Groups,' the Collector expressed displeasure to its General Manager (in-charge) K. Thangarajan. He also told the official to achieve the entire target of 50 villages within one month. He also reviewed various other government schemes.
KN. Subramanian, Lead District Manager, informed the bankers that the limit for collateral-free agriculture loan had been increased by the RBI from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 1 lakh to ensure free flow of credit to farmers.
B.R. Balasunder, Deputy Manager of Madurai circle of Canara Bank, the Lead Bank for Madurai district; A.J. George, RBI Assistant General Manager; K.V.S. Kumar, Joint Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Madurai Region; R. Shankar Narayan, Assistant General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD); and A. Thangavel, Project Officer, Mahalir Thittam, among others, took part in the meeting.
