SHILLONG, June 18 � Less than 10 per cent households in Meghalaya have bank accounts, thereby severely affecting implementation of several flagship programmes of the UPA Government, which are credit-linked.
Many of the flagship programmes, like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Indira Awas Yojna and others are credit-linked. Therefore, in the absence of banking transaction in the rural sector, implementation of these schemes have been affected, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said yesterday.
�About 95.90 per cent households do not indulge in banking transactions. Moreover, the credit-deposit (CD) ratio is very low,� he said after returning last evening from New Delhi. Sangma, who also holds the Finance portfolio, attended the Eastern region�s Finance Ministers� meet held in Patna, in which senior bank officials were also present.
He said some of the constraints relating to poor implementation of the UPA Government�s flagship programmes were highlighted to the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Meghalaya, which has 49 per cent of its population living below the poverty line, naturally was trying its best to make its population �financially literate� and also �coordinating with banks� to increase the CD ratio.
Meghalaya being a Sixth Schedule State, has a unique land tenure system with many people not having land patta (land deed.)
Sangma said, this position was made clear to the bank officials and they were requested to extend credit taking into consideration this unique system. The government, he added, was exploring whether it could issue land certificates to do away with this bottleneck.
Moreover, the banks were requested to open their branches in �unbanked blocks� in the State.
