By- Journalist Banibrata Datta
Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on a two day visit to the state, visited the Srimantapur Integrated Check Post (ICP) and the landport station in Sonamura under Sepahijala district on Saturday.
Sitharaman inspected various facilities at the ICP and the jetty being constructed on Gomati river located along the India-Bangladesh border.
During her visit to the ICP, Sitharaman interacted with the concerned officials on different points of issues related to the ICP, which has built up many improved facilities with a significant number of passenger movement and increasing trade recorded on daily basis between two countries.
To facilitate movement of passengers and trade at the Srimantapur ICP BSF, Customs and Land Port Authority of India are working together.
On the occasion, Sitharaman also released a booklet, titled, ” Connecting Borders” featuring all functional land customs stations in the NorthEast region. Officials of different central deptts, CBIC, and Land Port Authority of India and state administration were present during her visit.
On her arrival at Srimantapur, the Union Finance Minister was given guard of honour by 133 Bn of BSF.
The Finance Minister also visited the zero point along the Indo-Bangladesh border at pillar number 2083 where Border Guard Bangladesh received her with a bouquet of flowers.
Sitharaman, when she was Minister of State for the Ministry of Commerce had inaugurated the Srimantapur landport station on January 6, 2016.
Talking about the activities in Srimantapur ICP, Yogendra Garg, Chief Commissioner of Central GST and Central Excise of North East region said that the on her visit to this ICP, the Union Finance Minister has advised the concerned officials as to how to improve facilities in the station, and she expressed satisfaction over its performance in terms of passenger and trade flow.
Currently, the ICP is witnessing an increasing trend of passenger movement and export-import of commodities. In 2022-23, this ICP recorded 26,405 passengers coming from Bangladesh whereas the number of outgoing passengers was recorded at 25,582.
The ICP recorded an increasing trend of export-import trade, reflected in its custom duty collection, standing at Rs. 17.85 crore in 2022-23.
And also Sitharaman chairs review meeting of RRBs of NE, stresses on lending to MSMEs.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stressed on improving Credit-Deposit (CD) in North-eastern states and pitched for lending to the MSMEs by both Public sector banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).
The Finance Minister asked the RRBs to focus on lending under KCC for agri-allied activities for meeting the credit requirements of such people as most of the people in North-Eastern states are engaged in agri-allied activities such as animal husbandry and fisheries.
The Union Finance Minister chaired a review meeting of RRBs of North-Eastern states in Agartala on Friday.
The Secretary of Department of Financial Services (DFS), GoI, the Chairman of the SBI, the MD & CEO of the PNB, the Chairman of NABARD, senior Government officials of North-Eastern states and Bank Representatives were also present in the review meeting.
After the meeting, the Office of Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted a series of post saying, “Smt @nsitharaman also laid emphasis on increasing the Credit-Deposit (CD) ratio in North-Eastern states.As MSME is an important sector for the economy of these states, greater thrust on lending to MSME will be given by both Public Sector Banks as well as by RRBs”.
According to the Nirmala Sitharaman Office,
“During the meeting, discussions revolved around financial performance of RRBs and their performance in flagship schemes of the central government such as PMJJBY, PMSBY, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, PM Mudra Yojana, KCC, etc.”
In another tweet, Nirmala Sitharaman Office wrote, the Minister exhorted the RRBs to work towards meeting the credit requirements of rural people of the North-East. She stated that emphasis should be on giving as much credit to the priority sector as possible.
She also said, a roadmap has to be prepared within 30 days which indicates interventions each RRB has to make to improve their performance in areas where performance is not up to mark & targets for next 90 days to be given to RRBs to demonstrate improvement.
