Touching an all-time-high figure, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has extended financial support of Rs8,242 crore for agriculture and rural development in Punjab during the year 2012-13 — increased by 24 per cent from the previous year.
“Out of Rs8,242 crore, Rs6,403 crore was for crop loan, Rs1,218 crore for investment credit and Rs621 crore for infrastructure under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF),” said NABARD chief general manager Krishan Jindal.
“For facilitating credit flow for crop loan, NABARD provided financial support of Rs5,400 crore to cooperative banks and Rs1,003 crore to regional rural banks (RRBs), totaling Rs6,403 crore, marking an increase of 21 per cent over the previous year,” added Jindal.
He added that NABARD has extended this support at concessional rate of interest of 4.5 per cent per annum which has helped these banks to provide crop loan to farmers at seven per cent per annum.
NABARD provided refinance support of Rs1,218 crore during the year 2012-13 for capital formation in agriculture and rural sector covering farm and non-farm Sector activities — 77 per cent more than that of previous year. “Out of Rs1,218 crore, Rs574 crore was provided to commercial banks, Rs542 crore to cooperative banks and Rs102 crore to RRBs,” he added.
Jindal further informed that NABARD sanctioned projects involving loan component of Rs621 crore in 2012-13 under RIDF for creation of infrastructure in the rural areas. Of the total sanctions, infrastructure projects pertaining to irrigation accounted for 73 per cent, forestry 14 per cent, warehousing seven per cent and animal husbandry six per cent.
“It is for the first time in Punjab that forestry project involving loan of Rs86 crore for increasing bio-mass, reclamation of water-logged areas and improving the degraded forest land, irrigation project involving loan of Rs30 crore for using waste water from sewerage treatment plants (STPs) with a view to check contamination of Punjab rivers, and warehouse project involving loan of Rs42 crore to increase the badly needed storage capacity were sanctioned,” said Jindal.
On completion, these projects are expected to bring 53,500 hectares under forest cover, irrigate 71,458 hectares of agriculture land and increase 1,28,700 MT storage capacity in Punjab.
Jindal further added that with the technical support of NABARD, the project for migrating all the cooperative banks in the State to core banking solution (CBS) was initiated during the year. “Chandigarh State Cooperative Bank as well as Punjab State Cooperative Bank with all their branches and 200 branches of 20 District Central Cooperative Banks have migrated to CBS during the year 2012-13,” he added.
It is expected that all the cooperative banks in the State would fully migrate to CBS by September 30, 2013. Further, for smooth implementation of CBS, NABARD has provided grant support totaling Rs1.52 crore and with this support, computer labs have been set up in all the Cooperative Banks.