Nabard prepares Rs. 365,000-mn plan for TN

Chennai: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has in its focus paper estimated credit potential of Rs 36,459.50 crore for Tamil Nadu for 2008-09.

This is based on the bank’s potential-linked credit plans prepared for all the districts of the state for fiscal 2009, according to a Nabard statement on Friday.

Under the credit projections, the estimated credit potential for crop loans amounts to Rs 12,697.06 crore. For the farm sector in Tamil Nadu, Rs 4,181.57 crore has been projected as term loans for agricultural activity. For the non-farm sector, Rs 9,489.78 crore has been projected, and Rs 9,373.98 crore for activities under the priority sector.

Investment credit assigned across various agriculture sectors includes minor irrigation (Rs 531.22 crore), plantation and horticulture (Rs 796.96 crore) and dairy development (Rs 646.61 crore).

The focus paper said that as of March 31, 2007, the number of self-help groups (SHGs) credit-linked in Tamil Nadu stood at 3.99 lakh and cumulative bank loans aggregated Rs 3,816.22 crore with additional refinance of Rs 1,558 crore from Nabard.

Nabard is presently carrying out a pilot project for linking SHGs with post offices. So far, 2,344 SHG accounts have been opened and 174 SHGs have been credit-linked with revolving fund assistance of Rs 34 lakh, Nabard said.

Initiating discussions on the focus paper at a seminar on Friday, Tamil Nadu chief secretary L K Tripathy said that capital formation in agriculture had been declining, and wanted bankers to lay emphasis on finance investment activities to stimulate demand for credit.

Noting that jewellery loans were occupying a major share of crop loan financing by banks in Tamil Nadu, Tripathy said that this is not a healthy trend.

On the subject of manual scavenging in the state, Tripathy called on banks to rehabilitate about 8,000 families whose loan applications are presently pending before banks so that they could take up income generating activities.