This may necessitate the taking up of feasibility reports of projects in certain lines. A wide dissemination of this knowledge may prompt the various elements in the community to work out precise action programmes. These may call for bank finance and from this point onward come in the usual or traditional functions of a bank. It is possible that it may not always be necessary for a bank itself to undertake all this detailed survey work, for already some other developmental agency may be doing it, but what is still important for a bank is to understand the precise language of development and coordinate its activities with other developmental agencies. For this a banker has to get out of his traditional shell. A developmental task undertaken without a change in spirit and in the usual cold manner of a traditional banker with a calculating bent of mind may end up producing fat epitomes of survey reports with no precise action programmes. This will produce no development but only paper reports.
What role our banks have so far been playing in the task of social reconstruction? Let me attempt an assessment largely based on the bricks and bouquets that I keep on getting from the ultimate judges, viz. the public.
Three years back we took the momentous decision of bringing under public ownership a major portion of the banking industry with a view to enabling this vital industry to play an adequate role in the developmental task. We discussed with the industry the steps that they ought to take with a view to discharging their social responsibility more effectively. There emerged on the scene such programmes as the lead bank scheme, the branch expansion programme, lending schemes for hitherto neglected sectors, a programme of effective coordination between the banks and other development agencies etc.
It appears to me that in some respects we have achieved a fair measure of success while in others no more than a beginning has been made. In the first category fall the programmes of branch expansion and deposit mobilisation. Both these are fairly important aspects of banking development; in a sense they constitute the base for further work. However, it should not be imagined that they have been altogether flawless operations. They have their positive and negative sides. To the extent the branch expansion has laid stress on taking banking to those States of the country and within each State to those districts and areas that had been looked upon by the banking industry as unattractive in the past, it has been a positive gain. But merely opening of new branches in the hitherto unbanked areas is not enough. One would judge the success of these branches in terms of business that they do in those areas, particularly the business of credit extension. It is difficult to say categorically whether we have succeeded in making any significant dent on the problem of regional disparities in the matter of banking services. The advance made so far in this respect is no more than a mere scratch on the surface.
