Punjab Rural Development and Panchayats Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa on Wednesday urged the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to make its credit norms suitable to the State, which needs to develop the existing basic infrastructure.
At the same time, he urged the country’s apex development financial institution to make policies, programs and guidelines according to the specific needs of the States.
Bajwa was speaking during the State Credit Seminar for 2020-21 organized by the NABARD with the credit potential of Rs 2,30,664.81 crore for the State of Punjab. Bajwa also released the State focus paper for the year 2021-22 prepared by NABARD in the seminar.
NABARD has projected a credit flow of Rs 2,30,664.81 crore during 2020-21 in Punjab under priority sector lending, as per the revised norms outlined by the Reserve Bank of India.
Of the aggregate credit plan, the share of crop loan is pegged at Rs 98,211.12 crore (43 percent of the total), agriculture term loan at Rs 23,899.46 crore (10 percent), MSME at Rs 42,091.60 crore (18 percent), agricultural ancillary activities at Rs 15,002.60 crore (seven percent), and agriculture infrastructure at Rs 6,580.58 crore (three percent).
Bajwa lauded the efforts of NABARD in preparation of such a structured and comprehensive document, which reflects the potential available under each sub-sector of the state rural economy.
He assured all possible support from the State Government for the realization of projected credit potential and targeted development.
He advised banks to provide credit for capital intensive units like dairy, poultry, fisheries, etc and also for agro-processing units to enhance farm income with the objective to double the same by the year-2022.
He emphasized the need for setting up of mini as well as commercial dairy units, piggery, poultry as well as small orchards in farmer’s fields to supplement their income.
Additional Chief Secretary (Development) Viswajeet Khanna also praised the efforts of NABARD for promoting farmer and farming supportive projects like FPOs as well as the focus NABARD gave to Hi-tech Agriculture in its State Focus Paper.
Chief General Manager, Punjab Regional Office NABARD, JPS Bindra said that the theme of the current State Focus Paper is “Hi-tech Agriculture”.
Considering stagnation in agriculture productivity, depleting water tables, environmental concerns and paucity of labour, he said that adoption of hi-tech agriculture by farmers would give them better returns and resolve these issues to a large extent.
To achieve objectives of farm and rural development, crop diversification, increasing crop productivity, reducing the cost of cultivation, ensuring remunerative prices to farmers and supplementing their income through allied and off-farm sector activities would be the future strategies, he added.
Highlighting the new initiatives of NABARD in Punjab, he said that NABARD has launched its flagship initiative “e-Shakti” for the digitization of the self-help groups in 10 districts of the State.
Advocating the need for collectivization in the farming sector, he detailed about the concept of farmer producer organizations. A total of 103 FPOs have been promoted by NABARD in Punjab. He called upon all stakeholders to make use of the State Focus Paper in preparing their action plan for 2020-21, so that there is all-round development in the agriculture and rural sectors of Punjab through bank credit and related services.