NABARD refinance support for banks

Tribune News Service

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Jammu, April 11

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has provided aggregate refinance support of Rs 128.3 crore to banks in J&K during 2015-16.

This includes short-term refinance support of Rs 50 crore to banks for lending for crop loans and kisan credit cards (KCCs) to farmers and Rs 78.3 crore for facilitating banks to extend investment credit for farm and non-farm enterprises.

This was disclosed by Chief General Manager (CGM) of NABARD, Shankar A Pande, while briefing the media today.

BR Pattanaik, General Manager, and Deputy General Managers Sukhwinder Singh Bhatoa and Vinita Singh were also present.

The CGM stated that NABARD also provided highly concessional refinance to regional rural banks for crop loaning through KCCs under its special long-term refinance fund meant for encouraging long-term investment credit for encouraging capital formation in agriculture.

The CGM said the bank has prepared potential linked credit plans for all districts and assessed priority sector credit potential worth Rs 18,058.5 crore for J&K for 2016-17.

Pande added that banks were expected to gear up to disburse incremental loans to agriculture and priority sectors in the state during 2016-17 and NABARD would be willing to increase refinance support manifold.

During 2015-16, under its rural infrastructure development fund, NABARD sanctioned new projects with loan assistance of Rs 354 crore to the J&K Government.