Annual credit plan of Rs 28,600 cr announced

Crop loan: 29.31%, small-scale industries: 17.95%

The State-Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) here on Monday announced the Annual Credit Plan with a total outlay of Rs 28,600 crore for 2005-06, an overall increase of 21.81 per cent credit flow as compared to Rs 24,345.88 crore in 2004-05.

The Plan covers crop loans, agricultural term loans and allied activities, small-scale industries and other priority (tertiary) sector lendings.

While crop loans and agricultural term loans including allied activities will have a share of Rs 16,750 crore, the remaining Rs 11,850 crore will be shared by both small-scale industries and tertiary sector.

One of the notable features in the agricultural credit has been the growing share of public sector banks. This year the proposed credit stands at 56.17 per cent.

On the other hand, the share of cooperative credit further dwindled to just 24.16 per cent as compared to 27.54 per cent last year. The share of cooperative loans to agriculture sector was 34.69 per cent of the total outlay in 2001-02.

More than 50 per cent of the total credit target envisaged under the crop loans "� amounting to Rs 7,087 crore "� has been earmarked for paddy and sugarcane. Crop loans for paddy have been increased by over Rs 1,400 crore under the new credit plan.

The other crops which will receive major credit flow include groundnut (Rs 1,450 crore) and cotton (Rs 1,385 crore).

The agricultural allied sector which include dairy, poultry, sheep breeding and fisheries received only Rs 758 crore credit during 2004-05 as compared to the target of Rs1,168 crore.

For the current year, credit for dairy activities is only to the tune of Rs 262 crore while the actual target is pegged at Rs 403 crore. The target for the year 2005-06 to the agricultural allied sector has now been raised to Rs 1,525 crore.

Addressing the SLBC meeting, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy advised the bankers committee to encourage farmers to go for those crops which have the provision of minimum support price while disbursing the crop loans.

He also urged the bankers to give more importance to the agricultural allied activities in order to ensure that the rural families have an alternate source of income in the face of drought and other calamities.

The chief minister complimented Andhra Bank and other banks in the state for achieving 100 per cent credit disbursement targets during 2004-05. This was after a gap of five years, which were in line with the Union finance ministry's direction to increase the credit flow to the agriculture sector by 30 per cent.

While the crop loans went up from Rs 7,902.85 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 10,285.50 crore during 2004-05, registering an increase of 30.15 per cent, the allied agricultural activities witnessed 98.16 per cent increase in credit flow at Rs 758.42 crore as compared to Rs 382.72 crore in previous year.

The 251 per cent growth projected in agricultural term loans during the same period by SLBC at Rs 2,577.62 crore as compared to the target of Rs 1,815 crore was just a technicality as this amount included Rs 1,675 crore crop loans, which was converted into term loans during 2004-05.