Public Sector Banks to make big push for Swachh Bharat

Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Shri Rajeev Kumar, and Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shri Parameswaran Iyer held a joint video conference today with all public sector banks and public sector financial institutions to ramp up lending in the rural sanitation sector. The credit institutions committed to strive for trebling the lending to households, SHGs, MSMEs, SMEs, etc. in the rural sanitation sector.

All public sector banks and financial institution branches also committed to provide access to clean toilets for customers across all branches in the country as their contribution to the Swachh Bharat Mission. Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and Department of Financial Services will jointly institute Swachh Bank / Financial Institution awards to recognize exemplary contribution in this initiative through a competitive process.

In another landmark development, the institutions also agreed to dedicate a large part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds to the Swachh Bharat Mission in FY 2018-19. This is likely to infuse significant capital into sanitation initiatives across the country.