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Amid the Covid-induced economic slowdown, the Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB) has become the first among the 45 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in India to post a net profit for 20 straight years, after it reported net profit of Rs 133.61 crore till December last year of the current fiscal, doing business of over Rs 10,000 crore, a top bank official said.

According to TGB Chairman Mahendra Mohan Goswami, the bank started its journey in the year 1976 with a loss of Rs 3,550.47 and started making profit since 2000-01, wiping out the entire accumulated loss of Rs 139.40 crore.

"The TGB posted a net profit of Rs 133.61 crore till December last year (2020) of the current fiscal (2020-21) against Rs 86 crore in the corresponding period of the last financial year (2019-20)," Goswami told IANS.

He said the bank with 148 full-fledged branches and 13 USBs (ultra small branches) crossed Rs 10,000 crore business in December last year against Rs 9,700 crore in the corresponding period of the last fiscal.

With the amalgamations in 2019-20, the number of RRBs in the country had reduced from 53 as on March 31, 2019 to 45 as on March 31, 2020.

The 45 RRBs are operating with a network of 21,850 branches covering 685 districts in 26 states and in three Union Territories - Pondicherry, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Goa and Sikkim do not have RRBs.

Goswami said that TGB's net profit of Rs 133.61 crore till December last year was the highest since the bank was established 45 years ago.

The Central government has 50 per cent share in TGB, while the Punjab National Bank (PNB) has 35 per cent and Tripura government 15 per cent. With the merger of United Bank of India with PNB, the TGB is now under the sponsorship of PNB.

The TGB Chairman said that his bank is now well capitalised among the 45 RRBs operating in the country.

"Total networth of our bank crossed Rs 1,010.59 crore for the first time during the quarter ended December 2020. According to a report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Tripura Gramin Bank may continue to be sustainably viable without any further recapitalisation," he pointed out.

The bank's credit deposit ratio (CDR) currently stood at over 41 per cent against the national banks' CDR of 66 per cent.

The bank, which covers over 75 per cent of Tripura's population, mostly in the rural and interior areas, has 225 Aadhaar-enabled micro ATMs.

To encourage entrepreneurship among the rural youth and avoid the guarantor system in getting loans from the bank, the Gramin Bank has started forming joint liability groups (JLGs), and so far around 3,283 such groups have been formed involving over 14,083 people, Goswami said.