National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) chairman Harsh Kumar Bhanwala disclosed at a Press meet here on Thursday that the refinance support of the bank in the current financial year to farmers of Odisha through Cooperatives and Regional Rural Banks is set to exceed Rs5,000 crore. It would be a new high as it is higher than the all-time high of Rs4,225 crore in the previous financial year.
In the presence of the Chief General Manager of NABARD in Odisha SK Kale, he said the support to the State under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) is also higher than last year’s.
This support is in terms of loans that bear an interest rate of 7.5 per cent and has a repayment period of five years after a moratorium of two years. The cumulative support under the RIDF has exceeded Rs10,000 crore and created more than two lakh rural infrastructure projects. Bhanwala expressed satisfaction over the repayment record of the State.
Expressing interest in financing food parks in the State, he said Rs2,000 crore is available for setting up Mega Food Parks and talk is on with the MITS for the proposed food park at Rayagada.
Warehousing, storage and cold storage was another area of interest in his interaction with the media. He said that already Rs134.90 crore has been sanctioned by the NABARD under the NABARD Warehousing Fund scheme for creation of infrastructure including 357 godowns for 1.76 lakhs MT storage capacity.
Other projects that found mention in the discussion with the Chairman included the Wadi projects to promote small orchards in the tribal areas, watershed projects that has benefitted more than 16,000 families by irrigating over 45,000 hectare area in the State, promotion of Women Self Help Groups in the left wing extremist affected districts in the State, formation of over 11,000 farmers clubs with the objective of development through credit and coverage of more than 15,000 unbanked villages under financial literacy program.
Bhanwala mentioned that the Wadi projects, which were promoted by NABARD from its own fund, has attracted the attention of corporate and now they are prepared to park their CSR funds with the NABARD to fund such projects. He mentioned the names of Tatas, Jindals, and the Odisha Mining Corporation as the interested corporate houses and said that options are being explored to establish such associations through the existing procedural framework. Bhanwala also met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat.