The Reserve Bank of India for the first time organized a meeting to bring together banking officials, businessmen and RBI officials to impart new policies of the Union government to promote business in the country. RBI regional director S Ramaswami speaking at a Town Hall Meeting in Kolhapur on Thursday said that the Ichalkaranji textile sector should look towards branding to add value.

The textile sector from Ichalkaranji should go for branding itself across the country and abroad. There are several schemes of the government and banking sectors for starting business, they will not only benefit through such branding but prosper as well, Ramaswami said. Outsourcing the jobs of international brand is a good thing, but branding would add more value to it.

The regional director Ramaswami further said that some clothes are made in Ichalkaranji but they are sold by the branded company at a much higher price, instead of that create Ichalkaranji as a brand of ready-made clothes. The banks are there to assist with funds and credit supply as per the requirement.

The reasons behind holding such an event in Kolhapur, he said were that the union government has decided to push for local entrepreneurship and additional funding for people with business potential. Hence, a direct dialogue with the local businessmen who are interested in diversification or expansion will benefit out of it. Ultimately, they want to increase the employment through private sectors and new business activities across the country. Kolhapur being rich in agriculture and agro-processing, they have decided to concentrate on the district.

Rajendra Chouhan, general manager of Bank of India said that both small and medium industries are growing faster. All they need to do is to facilitate them with funds in short time. These people should not get frustrated in waiting for loan sanctioning.

District collector Amit Saini present for the function as well said that Kolhapur is one of the richest districts in the state, which underscores the potential of the people to seek credit and capacity to pay it back from time to time. Under the recently introduced schemes Shishu, Kishor and Tarun credit supply is divided into various categories. A loan amount as low as Rs 50,000 is made available through such schemes.

Agriculture based industry in this district has great prospects and if this opportunity is exploited with business sense, there is huge scope for it.