Tripura Gramin Bank notched profit for 17 consecutive years: Official

Agartala, Dec 21: The Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB), one of India’s 56 regiol rural banks (RRBs), posted net profit of Rs 35.98 crore up to September in current fiscal (2017-18). The bank has been notching profits successively for the past 17 years, the bank’s chairman said here on Thursday.

According to the TGB chief, the bank is the only RRB in the northeastern region, comprising eight states, that has been making profit successively.

Supervised by United Bank of India (UBI), the TGB, which is celebrating its 42nd anniversary on Thursday grew its volume of business (up to September) to Rs 7,803 crore, which is 14.27 per cent more than the corresponding period of last fincial year. “The bank achieved a profit of Rs 35.98 crore up to September this year. This is 57.60 per cent higher than the corresponding period of last fiscal,” the TGB Chairman Mahendra Mohan Goswami told the media.

Accompanied by the bank’s general mager Dipankar Ambuly, the bank chief said: “The bank currently has 157 branches including 13 ultra small branches (USB) across Tripura. The TGB’s per branch business has gone up to Rs 54.19 crore in the current fiscal against Rs 47.42 crore in the previous period. Per employee business has also gone up to Rs 9.48 crore (up to September in 2017-18 fiscal) against Rs 8.80 crore in the previous period.”

Goswami said the bank’s Credit Deposit Ratio (CDR) currently stood at 36.79 per cent against the tiol banks’ (functioning in the state) CDR of 43 per cent.

According to the official, the TGB’s CRAR (Capital to Risk Assets Ratio) has gone down to 19.66 per cent against 20.76 per cent in 2016-17. However, this CRAR is much higher than the Reserve Bank of India’s stipulated ratio of 9 per cent.

The bank, which has over 70 per cent branches in rural areas, also has Aadhaar-ebled 225 micro ATMs and 190 business correspondents to hand out money and other banking services at the doorsteps of customers.

The TGB is the first RRB in India to have been accorded permission by the RBI to start treasury function of the Tripura government and open a currency chest. The bank official said that to encourage entrepreneurship among the rural youth and avoid guarantor system in getting loans from the bank, since 2015-16 the Gramin Bank has started forming Joint Liability Group (JLG), and so far 4,084 such groups were formed involving 17,170 people.

The TGB, which has opened 383,123 bank accounts so far under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yoja, is the first such bank in eastern India, has introduced several customer friendly services including Aadhaar Payment Bridge System. (IANS)