Rs 9,636 crore Nabard credit for Gujarat

A Rs 9,636.30 crore credit plan, called the 'state focus paper', has been drawn up by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) for rural and agricultural development of Gujarat.

The state focus paper is a roadmap for credit flow from all banks of the state into agriculture and allied activities, non-farm sector, credit delivery systems like self-help groups, water shed development, rural infrastructure development funds and the like.

Unveiling the state focus paper for 2004-05, Nabard chief general manager Bhawar Puri on Thursday said the aggregate potential for institutional credit flow from banks during 2004-05, in respect of the priority sector of the economy of Gujarat, has been assessed at Rs 9636,30 crore.

The projection is 17.05 per cent higher over the estimated potential for 2003-04, which was Rs 8232.87 crore.

Listing down the sector-wise projections, Puri said crop loans with the potential-linked credit plans projections of Rs 5354.89 crore (55.6 per cent) form the largest chunk of the entire credit in the next fiscal year.

Agriculture term loans have been projected at Rs 1671.03 crore in the next fiscal year, which is 17.3 per cent of the total projection.

The non-farm sector will get 14.3 per cent of all the credit in the fiscal year, which is projected to be Rs 1376.84 crore and other priority sectors will get projected loans of Rs 1,233.54 crore, which is 12.8 per cent of the total projected loans, Puri said.

The state office of Nabard prepares the potential-linked credit plans for all districts in the state and updates these every year taking into account the additions in infrastructure facilities, changes in the central and state government policies to facilitate adequate flow of credit to agriculture, allied activities and other rural development sectors in the state.

Among other things, emphasis has been laid on the estimation of exploitable potential in various sectors for investment by entrepreneurs and financing by banks, identification of existing, planned and required infrastructure and other priority sector areas, in the SPF, Puri said.

Of the total disbursement of Rs 5,189.43 crore in the last fiscal year (2002-03) in the priority sector, commercial banks accounted for more than half of the lending with Rs 2691.25 crore (51.85 per cent).

This was followed by state co-operative banks and district central co-operative banks at Rs 2124.60 crore (40.97 per cent), regional rural banks at Rs 263.66 crore (5.07 per cent), Gujarat State Co-operative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks at Rs 76.28 crore (1.47 per cent) and other agencies at Rs 33.64 crore (0.67 per cent), the report says.

Among agriculture term loans, minor irrigation projects, land development, farm mechanisation, plantation, horticulture, forestry, dairy development, poultry and fisheries will form the major components in the potential-linked credit plan projects in the state for thecoming fiscal year.