@ Vikas Sharma | Sr Journalist
The opening phase of the bottom-up consultative process designated to generate ideas and review performance of banks and their alignment with national priorities was conducted at the Zonal level on 17th and 18th August 2019 by Bank of India at Zonal office, Ghaziabad, involving all branches within the Zone’s jurisdiction. In a first of its kind consultation, the branches were themselves engaged in self-assessment, deliberated on the issues, and evolvedideas on future strategy. The meet focussed on the ways and means to increase credit to various sectors of the economy with greater IT content to bring about innovation and leverage big data analytics. The idea is to make banking citizen-centric as well as more responsive to the needs and aspiration of senior citizens, farmers, small industrialists, entrepreneurs, youth, students and women.
Several topical themes such as:Digital payments, Corporate Governance in PSBs, Credit for MSMEs, Retail, Agriculture,Export Credit,Establishing Financial Grid and Enabling Bank Credit towards a $5 Tn economy were discussed during the meet with a view to Chart out specific roadmap for PSBs.
The meet also reviewed the Bank’s contribution to various national priorities in areas such as – Credit support for economic growth, Infrastructure / industry, Farm sector and blue economy, Jal Shakti, MSME sector and MUDRA loans, Education loans, Export credit, Green economy, Swachh Bharat, Financial inclusion and women empowerment, Direct benefit transfers, Less cash/digital economy, ease of living, leveraging local potential.
Such a comprehensive exercise facilitated conception of a number of implementable and innovative suggestions as to how PSBs in general, and Bank of India in particular, can play a more effective role in nation building. These suggestions were collated and have been sent for further discussions at the SLBC/State level, along with comparative performance assessment of the branches under each region. After the SLBC level, final consultations will be held at the national level to compare both intra and inter-bank performances, and to finalise the suggestions regarding the way ahead for implementation across PSBs.
The consultative process has resulted in a renewed sense of involvement and purpose down to the branch level and Bank of India is geared towards implementing the roadmap for the future, improve its performance, and further align itselfto national priorities.
