Nabard assistance up to Rs 2,569 crore

"If we continue the same rate growth in assistance, Nabard will easily cross the Rs 3,000 crore mark in Gujarat by the end of the current financial year," said, Bhawar Puri, chief general manager, Gujarat, Nabard.

He added that disbursements in 2004-05 too registered a 28 per cent rise at Rs 1,474 crore compared with disbursements of Rs 1,153 crore in the previous fiscal.

Puri said that under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), Nabard's assistance to the state government increased substantially to Rs 1,311.68 crore during 2004-05, compared with a disbursement under RIDF of Rs 899 crore in the previous year.

Puri said that 25 projects were sanctioned during 2004-05.

Those include rural drinking water projects and irrigation pipeline projects covering different districts of the state.

Under the production credit, co-operative and regional rural banks (RRBs) were sanctioned Rs 782 crore during 2004-05, compared with Rs 575 crore sanctioned during the previous year. Disbursements have also grown from Rs 409 crore to Rs 605 crore, a growth of Rs 48 per cent.

Puri said that in a bid to enable co-operative banks to provide assistance under various schemes announced by the Centre, Nabard has introduced a new scheme during 2004-05 called the 'Special Liquidity Scheme.'

"Co-operative banks were sanctioned a sum of Rs 126.37 crore under the scheme and the banks have availed assistance of Rs 40 crore till March 31, 2005," the he said.

Banks have responded well to the Centre's call to double the credit to the agricultural sector.

Till March 31, 2005, the banks have disbursed Rs 6,017 crore.

Puri said that while commercial banks in the state achieved 110 per cent of the target by disbursing Rs 2,683 crore compared with the target of Rs 2,606 crore, co-operative banks disbursed Rs 2,697 crore and regional rural banks disbursed Rs 387 crore.

Puri said that as many as 13,000 self help groups (SHGs) were promoted during the 2004-05 fiscal of which 8,400 SHGs were credit linked with banks providing assistance of Rs 36.54 crore.