Dikhyaa Mohanty 
During the second wave in Odisha, three in every 100 hospitalised patients had banked heavily on the public sector banks to meet the treatment expenditure.
According to the reports, the intensity of the household problems that prevailed during the second wave in Odisha can well be ascertained from the fact that Sambalpur district saw deposit outflow of Rs 10 billion or over Rs1000 crore during the peak period (April-May). During the second wave of Covid-19, only five districts in the country had recorded such a huge deposit outflow and Sambalpur is one among them, as per a State Bank business data analysis.
The official reports further stated that till June 15 Odisha saw hospitalisation of over 1.6 lakh and an amount of 5,522 had taken collateral-free loans from the public sector banks in the State. A total of 6 banks, namely, State bank of India, Canara Bank, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India have provided a collateral-free loan facility for salaried, non-salaried and pensioner account holders.
Under the Covid-19 relief measures announced by RBI, these nationalised banks had launched this loan scheme, whereby, an individual account holder can apply for the loan amount that ranges between Rs 25000- to Rs 5 lakh. While the repayment tenure has been fixed at 5-years, the rate of interest charged was 6.85 – 8.5 per cent. The scheme also has the feature of a loan moratorium for 3-6 months.
As many as 8 districts with high active caseload during the peak period in the second wave in the State had seen a huge outflow of deposits. Sambalpur led the table. The heavy outflow had also been witnessed in the districts of Khordha, Cuttack, Sundargarh, Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Balasore and Angul.
