All public sector banks will begin a special drive from October 2 for filling up of backlog vacancies reserved for scheduled castes, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) Chairman Vijay Sampla said on Thursday.

The decision comes after a review meeting, jointly chaired by the NCSC chairman and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, was held on the performance of public sector banks (PSBs) on credit and other welfare schemes for scheduled castes (SCs).

Sampla said he, along with the finance minister, reviewed the various measures taken by PSBs in giving credit to persons belonging to a scheduled caste community and their welfare in terms of reservation, backlog vacancies, functioning of welfare and grievance redressal mechanism, and other issues.

While addressing the media here, the NCSC chairman said the banks will conduct the drive from October 2 to December 31 this year for filling up the backlog vacancies. Also, the banks have been directed to clear and complete the pending grievances of people belonging to the SCs during this drive, till October 31.

The banks' branches will complete the targets assigned to them, especially the obligations towards the members of the SC community, as per the Stand Up India Programme of the Union government. Similarly, with regard to other government schemes like NRLM, NULM, Mudra, Swabhiman and Awas Yojana, banks should set a target to achieve the percentage earmarked for SC beneficiaries," he added.

Sampla also said that the banks will send a report on reservation policy, with regard to recruitments and coverage of SC beneficiaries in all the schemes, and submit the progress of all the schemes to the NCSC, twice every year.

"Also, banks have been asked to make physical presentations before the NCSC during the period from April 14 to April 30 (birthday of Dr B R Ambedkar) every year; and send a report in the second fortnight of October each year, he added.

The banks were also directed to give minimum wages to all the outsourced employees and submit the report regarding this to the department of financial services and NCSC, and the banks will review the data of all the loans that were approved but not disbursed, and analyze the gap.

It has been found that there are a lot of cases in SC-VCF (Scheduled Caste Venture Capital Fund) where accounts have become NPAs. Banks were directed to examine the backward-forward linkages at the time of sanctioning of loan. Banks may take services of advisors/consultants to help the SC entrepreneurs for project appraisal before sanctioning of loan and to ensure the proper implementation of projects, Sampla said.

Bankers should ensure that every eligible scheduled caste person applying under the Credit Enhancement Guarantee Scheme or other such schemes gets the benefit thereof, he added.