New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday reviewed the performance of Regional Rural Banks of the northeast region and asked them to improve the credit-deposit ratio by giving more loans.

During the meeting with heads of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), she exhorted them to work towards meeting the credit requirements of rural people of the Northeast, the finance ministry said in a series of tweets.

Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi, SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara, PNB Managing Director Atul Kumar Goel and other senior government officials of northeastern states and bank representatives were present at the meeting.

The Finance Minister stated that emphasis should be on giving as much credit to the priority sector as possible.

"Smt @nsitharaman directed the Secretary @DFS_India to review individual #RRBs in presence of their sponsor banks and to identify their strengths and specific issues affecting their performance," a tweet said.

She said that a roadmap has to be prepared within 30 days, which indicates interventions each RRB has to make to improve their performance in areas where performance is not up to mark and targets for the next 90 days to be given to them to demonstrate improvement.

As most of the people in northeastern states are engaged in agri-allied activities, such as animal husbandry and fisheries, she asked the RRBs to focus on lending under KCC for allied activities for meeting the credit requirements of such people.

"Smt @nsitharaman also laid emphasis on increasing the Credit-Deposit (CD) ratio in North-Eastern states. As MSME is an important sector for the economy of these states, greater thrust on lending to MSME will be given by both Public Sector Banks as well as by #RRBs," another tweet said.

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