TAD NewsDesk, Assam: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) projects has credited potential worth Rs 32316.03 crore for Assam for the financial session of 2020-21. This is 15.46% higher than the previous year.

The credited potential has been divided in the following manner:

  •  Rs 17586.21 crore (55%) will go towards Agriculture and Allied activities.
  • 10872.45 crore (34%) will go towards the MSME sector.
  • Rs 1093.56 is devoted towards the potential for Informal Credit, SHGs / JLGs.
  • Rs 2403.32 crore towards the Housing and Education Sector.
Sarbananda Sonowal, Chief Minister Assam inaugurated the State Credit Seminar 2021 and unveiled the State Focus Paper 2021-22 prepared by NABARD. The paper is titled: “Collectivization of Agricultural Produce for enhancing Farmer’s Income”.

The Chief Minister complimented NABARD for organising the State Credit Seminar and appreciated the Potential Linked Credit Plans and State Focus Paper which captures the available exploitable credit potential under Priority Sector of the state’s economy, which were often used also as reference documents by the Banks and Government Agencies.

The Assam CM appealed to the following institutions to join hands together and improve institutional finance for the sector:
  • RBI
  • NABARD
  • SLBC Assam
  • Banks

  • Line Departments

S. S. Saha, Chief General Manager, NABARD, Assam Regional Office said that NABARD is working towards achieving the twin goal of:
  • ‘Collectivization of Agricultural Produce’
  • ‘Doubling the Farmers’ Income by 2022’.

Mr Saha added that the government is continuously working towards credit absorption and meeting the credit demands of the sector in the state.

Saha asserted that this development project was taken up for the need of the Gross Capital Formation (GCF) in the following sectors:

  • Agriculture
  • Enhance production & productivity through an increase in credit to agriculture
  • Implementation of Kisan Credit Card Scheme
  • Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)
  • Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF)
  • Digitisation of SHGs through E-Shakti Project
  • mitigation of the adverse effect of Climate Change
  • Central Sector Scheme for the formation of Farmers’ Producer Organisations and augmentation of credit to MSME sectors.

Jishnu Barua, IAS, Chief Secretary urged banks to be farmer friendly and step up financing of agriculture and allied sector so as to exploit the credit potential projected by NABARD in its State Focus Paper 2021-22.

Mr Barua also expressed concern about the low level of disbursements under Crop Loan in the State of Assam.

Source: The Economics Time