Finance Ministry has set the farm credit target for commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperatives close to Rs 1,50,000 crore this fiscal after the resounding success in 2004-05.Finance minister P Chidambaram is slated to meet bankers within a few weeks to set the new target, which would be nearly 30% higher than Rs 1,18,000 crore disbursed to the farm sector in 2004-05, official sources said.Chidambaram has already discussed the credit situation for this fiscal with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Nabard a few days ago."The farm credit target may be pegged at Rs 1,41,000 crore to Rs 1,49,000 crore for this fiscal," an informed source said.After Chidambaram's directive to banks, credit to farm sector was stepped up to Rs 1,18,000 crore as against the initial target of Rs 1,05,000 crore.The Vaidyanathan Committee, which came up with far reaching recommendation on cooperative sector and mooted a Rs 15,000 crore bailout in 3-4 years, has now been asked to look into the aspects of long-term credit to farmers for irrigation and other rural infrastructures. While ensuring higher credit flow from commercial banks,the government wants to revive the cooperative sector so that its share of credit to rural sector also goes up.Sources said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to convene a meeting of chief ministers of all states this month end to give a final shape to the proposed Rs 15,000 crore revitalisation package of cooperative banks.The move comes in the wake of rising losses of cooperatives estimated at Rs 9,277 crore in 2002-03, and their declining share in rural credit from around 62% in 1992-93 to around 34% in 2002-03.
