Kolkata-headquartered public sector bank-Allahabad Bank has now joined hands with Chamber of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CIMSME), a not for profit organisation to reach out to micro, small and medium sector more effectively and serve them better. CIMSME represents interests of the companies in MSME sector with banks, FIs, concerned ministries and other organisations.

Under the agreement between Allbank and CIMSME, the latter will mobilise proposals from its members for consideration of the bank. After sanction of loan from the bank, CIMSME will also support the bank in follow up and recovery of dues and shall provide early warning signals to the bank, if any.

“MSME has a great role in economic development of the country. It provides vast employment opportunities. Allahabad Bank has always been coming out with lot of strategies to improve on credit delivery to MSME sector. The latest one has also been part of that overall strategy and drive,” Allbank spokesman said.

“The association with CIMSME is bound to accelerate the process of disposal of loan proposals under MSME and help the bank in getting quality proposals and boost credit flow to MSME, a very important sector of the economy,” he said.

In what reflects the importance of the MSME sector to the banks, Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) had recently teamed up with eight regional rural banks (RRBs) and urban cooperative banks (UCBs) across West Bengal, other eastern and north-eastern states for increasing credit flow to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the region. SIDBI will also be extending capacity building support to RRBs/ UCBs/ District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) for handling micro enterprises loans (MEL) of MSMEs in this region.

Significantly, Indian micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector comprises over 31 million units, employing over 73 million people, contributes over 40 per cent of India’s industrial production and 40 per cent of Indian exports. Access to credit has been an important issue for the sector to harness its growth potential.

ritwikmukherjee@mydigitalfc.com