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Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 13
Agriculture and allied sectors of Punjab and Haryana will have a lion’s share in banks’ total advances in the next fiscal year. Given the dominance of agriculture sector in these two states, more than 60% of the lending potential by the banks has been dedicated to the sector in 2019-20. This will ensure credit access to farmers from institutional finance.
To augment production and productivity in agriculture sector in these two states, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has assessed the credit potential at Rs 2.23 lakh crore out of total credit potential of Rs 3.53 lakh crore.
For Punjab, Nabard has estimated credit potential of Rs 1.42 lakh crore for agriculture and allied activities out of total outlay of Rs 2.28 lakh crore during 2019-20. Other loans include MSME loans, export credit, educational and housing loans.
The share of crop loan is estimated at Rs 97,577 crore — 43% of total estimated potential. Loan for agriculture infrastructure is estimated at Rs 6,490 crore, agriculture ancillary (Rs 14,963 crore) and agriculture term loan (Rs 23,407 crore).
“We have prepared the State Focus Paper to identify the interventions and probable credit disbursement to enhance the farmers’ income so as to achieve the national goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022,” said JPS Bindra, CGM, Nabard (Punjab regional office).
A senior official blamed low growth in income from farming due to increased cost of production for high indebtness in Punjab. “Moreover, the absence of digitised land records, multiple financing by banks, stress of short-term crop loan instead of asset-creating term loan and unproductive use of credit by farmers, have aggravated the situation. Also, the existence of non-institutional financing channel in villages has created high indebtedness in the state which is matter of grave concern,” the official said.
Bindra emphasised on the need for capital formation in agriculture and advised the banks for providing financial assistance to farmers for investment activities.
For Haryana, Nabard envisages credit potential at Rs 81,022 crore for crop and term loan and for agriculture allied activities, around 62% of the total credit potential. Overall, the state has a credit potential of Rs 1.30 lakh crore under priority sector for 2019-20.
The state credit plan is an aggregation of potential-linked plans prepared for all districts of a particular state by Nabard in consultation with state government, banks and other stakeholders and forms the base for the preparation of annual credit plans by banks.