The State Bank of India (SBI) has come up with an innovative method to recover loans worth millions of rupees in Ranchi that are not being returned.
The bank has put up hoardings in different parts of the state capital, threatening to make public the names and addresses of long-time loan defaulters.
With "Names of persons who are defaulters" painted at the top, the hoardings have four blank columns: for names, addresses, amounts due and photographs. The bottom of the hoarding reads: "Do you want your name in the list?"
None of the hoardings carry names of any defaulter though.
"We have deliberately not put any name," said a bank official. "We do not want to defame the defaulters. Our purpose is to recover the loans."
The official put the amount of pending loans at Rs.30 billion and the number of defaulters at 20,000.
He said the response to the hoardings was good. "We have got a good response. We hope for fast recovery of loans."