However, despite the surge, the average income of banking correspondents has taken a beating due to the low value of transactions.

Industry fears waiver of interest on interest would distort credit culture, may encourage borrowers who can pay to defer repayment.

'States have done a tremendous job of identifying health facilities for COVID-19 care and equipping them well.'

In Sandelerbil village alone in the Hingalgunj block in the Sundarbans, around 36 families from the Scheduled Caste community migrated from Tamil Nadu in March, where they had been working in a gas oven factory. A majority awaits dues promised but not paid. The story is no different in the villages of Manipur, Atapur, and Amtoli under the Sandeshkhali block in the Sundarbans.

Perched in the hills of Darjeeling, the factory was set up in 1874, but has remained shut since 2001. Efforts to reopen the colonial era establishment are now on a war footing.

As the world awaits the end of the global pandemic, rural Bengal might be witnessing a recession unfolding in bits and pieces. With factories and tea gardens closing down, agricultural income falling and storm Aila ravaging a large part of deltaic West Bengal in 2010, migration gradually became a norm.

Bandhan Bank is expecting that a little less than 50 per cent of its portfolio will be dominated by affordable housing loans in the next three to five years.

Chit fund

All transfers and promotions for next financial year will be decided by respective banks, not by the merged entity.

According to a 2011 impact assessment study of the programme by Banerjee and Duflo, along with economists Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Jeremy Shapiro, Bandhan's THP results in a 15 per cent increase in household consumption and had a positive impact on wealth and welfare, such as assets and emotional well being.

Under the PMFBY - introduced in 2016 - farmers have to pay a maximum of 2 per cent of the sum insured for kharif and 1.5 per cent for rabi food and oilseed crops and 5 per cent for commercial/horticultural crops. Eighteen general insurance companies, including five public sector insurance firms, have been empanelled for the scheme's implementation.

Private insurance firms say, over the past few years, they have been investing on digital technologies to reach semi urban and rural areas.

Since much of the voting was on religious lines, Mamata's rural focus became irrelevant.

'Neither the Centre nor the state is helping us, rather they are coming up with new ways to create stumbling blocks for the return of money.'

One of the factors behind the rise in securitisation deals was State Bank of India's (SBI) decision to buy portfolio worth Rs 45,000 crore from NBFCs

Recently, CVC suggested that banks have a monitoring mechanism for bad loan sales to ARCs, with the cash flow statement from stressed assets shared with banks.

AIBOC in a letter to the Prime Minister, has said the government should not expect the banking fraternity to "join the political campaign of #MainBhiChowkidar" unless issues related to merger of banks, salary revision and staff recruitment, among others, are addressed.

/We will stay away from corporate loans,' C S Ghosh, managing director and chief executive officer of Bandhan Bank, tells Namrata Acharya.

Multiple reasons accounted for the losses, including manpower crunch and lack of clarity on the merger of National, United and Oriental, reports Namrata Acharya.

From zeroing in on the best means for stake dilution to moving beyond microfinance, Bandhan navigates a tough path. Namrata Acharya reports.