PATNA: The state government would transfer money to the beneficiaries only in their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts through direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode from April 1 this year, deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said on Monday.

Reviewing the performance of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), commercial banks and regional rural banks (RRBs), Modi asked the bankers operating in the state to ensure that the accounts of all the beneficiaries of government schemes are linked with their respective Aadhaar numbers.

State finance department principal secretary Sujata Chaturvedi , along with senior officials of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Nabard, were among the senior government and bank officials from the districts who took part in the review meeting.

Modi said payment was made through the DBT mode to the 63% of the labourers under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). “From April 1, the money will be transferred through the DBT mode only into the Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of the beneficiaries of all the state government schemes,” Modi said, adding the state has around three crore beneficiaries of various government schemes.

Sources said of the seven crore operative bank accounts in the state, around four crore are already linked with Aadhaar, while the verification/authentication of two crore of the Aadhaar-linked accounts with thumb impressions of the account holders (also called seeding of the Aadhaar numbers with Unique Identification Authority of India base) has already been done. New accounts opened after July 1 last year have been linked with Aadhaar numbers. Moreover, the state has 3.75 crore Jan Dhan accounts of which 70% are operative through which banking transactions are being done.

Modi also asked the bankers to promote digital transactions as the target fixed for Bihar is Rs148 crore against the national target of Rs2,500 crore. He advised them to coordinate with the administration to open camps in +2 schools and colleges to motivate students to go for digital transactions.

While the state’s credit-deposit (CD) ratio was around 43% against the national average of 73.6%, Modi asked the bankers to increase the loan amount of Rs50,000-1 lakh to small and marginal farmers of the state, as the percentage loan recovery rate with regard to them stood at 96%.

“Only those who take heavy loans end up as defaulters,” Modi said and sought suggestions from the bankers so that the government could act upon them to further improve the situation.

He said the CD ratio in the districts like Siwan, Saran, Bhojpur and Munger is “very low” against other high-performing districts and needed to be looked into closely.

He also asked the bankers to increase loan activities under annual credit plan (ACP) of Rs1.10 lakh crore. The bankers noted that 61% of the target had been met till December last year. The average loan by them in the state has been around 85% of the target by the end of the financial years, as per the previous records.

