MSMEs formed a very crucial part of the announcements made under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ by GOI wherein MSMEs were defined. To empower them in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the country’s largest lender State Bank of India organized more than 125 E-Town Hall Meetings from May to date. As per directives of DFS, SBI conducted Circle level meetings to reach out to MSME customers and explain the various reliefs and financial support provided to them to fight the COVID-19 outbreak. These meetings witnessed participants of around 3000 MSME customers.
SBI has also rolled out the Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line Loan Product to support MSMEs and business enterprises as per the guidelines of NCGTC. Under GECL, the bank has sanctioned GECL aggregating Rs. 15000 crore to 1.5 lakh MSME customers. SBI so far has disbursed loans worth Rs. 8700 crore. Additional supportive measures such as COVID Emergency Credit Line, re-assessment of working capital limits, and restructuring of advances are also being made available to MSME customers.
During multiple Town Hall meetings, CS Setty, MD (Retail & Digital Banking), SBI participated and interacted with the customers. Their queries were also addressed and clarified by the bank’s senior officials.
C S Setty, MD (Retail & Digital Banking), SBI said, “MSME being the priority sector of Indian economy, it was important to hold these meetings to understand the concerns and handhold our customers amid lockdown and provide them with much needed financial aid. We are glad that our E-Town Hall meetings were attended and appreciated by our numerous MSME customers. We along with the help of our employees are continuously focusing on supporting MSMEs in these unprecedented times.”
For creating further awareness and educate its employees on loan product offerings for MSMEs, SBI conducted around 120 webinars where nearly 3200 employees participated. Apart from that the 50 State Bank Institute of Learning & Development across the country and 2 Apex Training Institutes at Gurugram and Hyderabad, have conducted 841 webinars during May 2020 where active participation of more than 16000 employees was seen.
