Delhi: In an attempt to uplift the SC community in the country, the All Public Sector Banks (PSBs) will begin a special campaign drive from October 2 this year for filling up the backlog vacancies of scheduled castes, said National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) Chairman Vijay Sampla while addressing the media personnel on Thursday in New Delhi.
During his address, Vijay Sampla said, “The banks will conduct the drive from October 2 to December 31 for filling up the backlog vacancies. Also, the banks have been directed to clear and complete the pending grievances of SCs during this drive, till October 31."
"The banks’ branches will complete the targets assigned to them, especially the obligations towards the members of the SC community, as per the Stand Up India Programme of the union government. Similarly, with regard to other union government schemes like NRLM, NULM, Mudra, Swabhiman, and Awas Yojana, banks should set a target to achieve the percentage earmarked for SC beneficiaries,” Sampla added.
Sampla declined to comment on a question about the names of banks and the number of backlogs and said that we're just a recommendatory body. We give opinions but we do not make schemes. We have some data with us but we are still in the process of acquiring the complete data, he added.
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Emphasizing the urgency for the upliftment of the SC community which has been facing a huge setback due to inflation and the Covid pandemic, Sampla said that the banks will send a report on reservation policy, with regard to recruitments and coverage of SC beneficiaries in all the schemes, and submit the progress of all the schemes to the NCSC, twice every year.
"Also, banks have been asked to make physical presentations before the NCSC during the period April 14-April 30 every year; and send a report in the second fortnight of October of each year," he added.
Mentioning the problems faced by the SCs due to the NPA and a huge backlog, the Chairman said, “It was found that there are a lot of cases in SC-VCF (Scheduled Caste Venture Capital Fund) where accounts have become NPA. Banks were directed to examine the backward forward linkages at the time of sanctioning of loans. Banks may take services of advisors/ consultants to help the SC entrepreneurs for project appraisal before sanctioning of loan and to ensure the proper implementation of projects”.
Sampla's statements came a day after conducting a review meeting which was jointly chaired by NCSC chairman and the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman regarding the performance of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) on credit and other welfare schemes for scheduled castes.
