Andhra Bank focuses on agriculture lending
Hyderabad: In a bid to significantly increase its agriculture-lending portfolio, Andhra Bank has recruited 71 agriculture graduates and post-graduates from different universities of the country as Rural Development Officers. The bank said these new recruits were given an exclusive task of implementing various rural development schemes of the bank and prepare exhaustive plans for meeting various credit needs of the cross section of villagers in the service area villages of the bank.

The bank said said it has recently conducted week-long orientation training to these new recruits to equip them to prepare plans of action on rural development and implementing them. Senior officials from the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Reserve Bank of India and National Bank for Rural Development (Nabard) addressed these recruits.
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IFCI to utilise steel sector investments
Mumbai: Over 24 per cent of IFCI’s funds, or Rs 4,362 crore, is locked up in the steel industry, a newspaper report said. This is the largest exposure of a financial institution (FI) to any single sector. Steel till eight months back was in doldrums. Milking the upturn, the FI hopes to encash its investments in this sector. With exposure in the form of loans, equity holdings, debentures as well as guarantees to the steel industry, IFCI is optimistic that with the improvement in capacity utilisation and increase in prices the pressure on non-performing assets will ease in the coming year.

Aside from its funds being locked up in steel, IFCI has a sizeable exposure to the infrastructure sector at Rs 3,613.4 crore. A chunk of the funds Rs 3,081.6 crore have been invested in power and related companies. Of this, over Rs 1,292 crore has funded guarantees and an additional Rs 1,174.5 crore towards direct lending to the sector.IFCI’s exposure to this sector accounts for over 10 per cent of its entire outstanding portfolio of Rs 18,786 crore.
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