The West Bengal government on Tuesday criticised banks for an alleged delay in sanctioning and disbursing loans under the state’s student credit card scheme and directed them to speed up both processes.

In a meeting between the finance department and the State Level Bankers’ Committee, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s principal chief advisor Amit Mitra asked lenders why there were “at least 16,000 provisionally sanctioned cases pending and another 51,000 applications under the scheme lying unattended at different banks”.

According to a source in the state secretariat, the bankers mentioned that the sanction and disbursement of loans got delayed “primarily because of lapses on the part of applicants”.

Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi and state Higher Education Department Secretary Manish Jain were also present in the meeting.

Dwivedi urged them to quickly sanction loan applications, which are stuck in banks even after getting clearance from the state government, by April 30.

He also directed the school education department to clear the applications which are lying with them by May 31.

Notably, Mitra had written to the banks last week, questioning the “delay” in sanction and disbursement of such loans.

In a meeting of the Home Department held at the state secretariat, Dwivedi also discussed with representatives of National Highways Authority of India, officials of public works department and transport and senior police officers of Howrah district on the state’s plan to decongest and renovate the Kona Expressway, the source said.

“Discussions were held on the renovation of the Kona Expressway. The NHAI authorities were asked to start the process and full cooperation from the state government’s side was assured in today’s meeting,” the official said.

He also said a joint team of the state government and the NHAI may carry out an assessment survey of the expressway on Friday before the commencement of the renovation works.

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