Mumbai: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s loan mela efforts are beginning to show signs of having an impact with credit growing by Rs 1.76 lakh crore in October and Decenber from a fall in the first half of the fiscal.Ever since the government launched its first loan outreach programme to revive demand by extending loans to retail customers MSMEs in early October, commercial banks in the country have disbursed Rs 1.76 lakh crore compared with a contraction of Rs 412 crore in the April-September period, according to the latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India. “Beyond Q2, there are several positive developments which could turn out to be green shoots,” RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said in his December policy statement. The governor had also said that there were some indications that the capex cycle may be turning positive.The results of 1,539 listed private manufacturing companies suggest that funds mobilised by these corporates during the first half of FY20, including possible savings on account of the corporate tax cut effected in September, were mainly used for fixed asset formation and reduced borrowing.Besides MSMEs, vehicle loans, unsecured loans as well as loans to service sector, hotels and tourism and the wholesale trade in particular show a pickup over April-September numbers.In October-November, following the outreach programme, fresh loans to micro and small units rose by Rs 1,430 crore, compared with a contraction of 14,177 crore in April-September. Loans to services rose by Rs 1,090 crore compared with a contraction of Rs 53,743 crore in April-September. Vehicle loans picked up by Rs 4,550 crore in October-November from Rs 1,292 crore in April-September.A year-on-year comparison of the overall loan growth also shows that FY20 third-quarter numbers have improved as the credit gap over the previous quarter has narrowed. While credit growth in the September quarter was only Rs 819.5 crore compared with Rs 3.56 lakh crore in the yearearlier period, the numbers look much better with credit growth in October-December at Rs 1.76 lakh crore compared with Rs 3.06 lakh crore a year ago.