The Business Bytes
PRIYABRAT BISWAL
BHUBANESWAR, JANUARY 25, 2021
The Apex development finance institution of the country, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)on Monday estimated Odisha’s total credit requirement of Rs. 1,10,735 crore for the financial year 2021-22 with greater emphasis on crop diversification, animal husbandry and fishery sector apart from greater thrust on enhancing credit flow to Self Help Groups (SHGs).
This was part of the State Focus Paper for Odisha, released by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari at the State Credit Seminar for FY2021-22 organised by NABARD here today.
In his welcome address, NABARD Chief General Manager C Udayabhaskar said that the credit projections for Odisha for FY2021-22 is Rs.1,10,735 crore which is based on the potential assessed under various sectors and sub sectors in all the agro climatic zones of the state.
He solicited cooperation of the State Government Banks and other stakeholders towards achieving the credit growth required to realize the potential identified under plan. He also highlighted the important business and developmental initiatives of NABARD in the state.
He said the projected credit flow to the priority sector for the year 2021-22 has been enhanced by 22.5% from the year 2020-21. The projection for credit to the agriculture sector was pegged at Rs 46,460.40 crore which is 7.34% more than the projection of the year 2020-21.
Keeping in view high credit growth in MSME sector with a potential to generate rapid employment in the post-covid periods, the paper made a projection of 41,867.10 crore for credit to MSME sector with a growth of 37.46% over the previous year.
Similarly, in order to improve flow of credit to SHG, the projection for loan under the category has been kept at 6,295.77 crore which will also increase the average loan for SHG.
The focus paper also said that there is a need to highlight the newly developed irrigated areas to have plans for crop diversification, water saving mechanism and special credit plans to augment the credit flow.
Allied sectors like commercial dairying, goatery, fisheries and horticulture need to be developed in clusters to optimize availability of various support services and better market linkage, it said,
The focus paper also suggested for development of Agri Incubation centre to promote start-ups greenfield areas. Skill development and entrepreneurship development to be taken up for building the solid foundation for the private capital formation, it said adding that the SHG loans to be doubled from the present levels.
Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari NABARD congratulated the banking sector in advance towards achieving the priority sector lending target of Rs.1 lakh crore for the Financial Year 2020-21. He emphasized upon increasing the agricultural term loan finance in allied sector activities such as Animal Husbandry, Poultry, Fisheries leading to asset formation and diversification of the income basket of farmers.
Pujari also advised RBI and all the bankers to increase their banking outreach in unbanked areas of the state in order to help the State in effective implementation of various developmental programmes and also increase the scope of digital banking and Financial Inclusion across Odisha. He emphasized the need of a coordinated support from all the stakeholders to make Odisha a leading state in Indian economy.
Principal Secretary (Finance) A K K Meena informed that Odisha has been performing consistently well compared to the national level GDP. However, he pointed out that the share of the Bank credit in the GSDP of the state is much below than the contribution of credit to national level GDP. This reflects that while the state is doing its best and Banks have large scope to enhance its partnership in the progress, Meena said while suggesting Banks to double the credit assistance being given to the SHGs.
Speaking on the occasion, Development Commissioner P K Jena highlighted the necessity to motivate the farmers to take up remunerative crop where irrigation facility has been provided. Providing real life incidence, he highlighted timely provision of credit to farmers as a critical input for the improvement of farm sector in the state.
Agriculture Production Commissioner Raj Kumar Sharma outlined the various policies that Odisha Government has initiated in order to augment the farmers’ income like Odisha Agriculture Policy, KALIA & BALRAM Scheme, and Odisha FPO Policy 2018.
The seminar was also attended by RBI Regional Director MK Mall, SLBC Convener A Jena among others.
For the first time the seminar was attended by the District Collectors, LDMs and DDMs of NABARD in a virtual mode.
During the programme, NABARD felicitated best performing farmers from Krishak Sammridhi Yojana (Project for Doubling of Farmers Income), Farmers Producers Organisation and members of SHGs apart from two best tribal farmers who have excelled in Wadi project (Orchard Development) promoted by NABARD.
