The Hindu Business Line : Nabard sets higher short-term refinance target of Rs 22,000 cr

“In the last fiscal also we had raised around Rs 14,000 crore. But this year we have Government assistance of Rs 5,000 crore through the Short-Term Seasonal Agriculture Operations Fund. This has reduced our market borrowing requirements, despite higher targets for short-term refinance,” Mr U.C. Sarangi, Chairman, Nabard.

The market borrowing will be staggered through the year depending on liquidity conditions, said officials.

Nabard has outstanding market borrowings of Rs 33,381 crore (excluding Rural Infrastructure Development Fund deposits) as on March 31, 2008, against Rs 32,146 crore in the previous year.

Refinance

The bank has seen an 18 per cent growth in the short-term refinance for crop loans in 2007-08 at Rs 17,382 crore, against the previous year’s Rs 14,758 crore. This was extended to short-term co-operatives and regional rural banks to supplement their resources.

Nabard officials said that the short-term refinance target for the current fiscal is around Rs 22,000 crore.

The bank’s refinance to commercial banks, co-operative banks and regional rural banks (RRBs) for the purpose of investment credit amounted to Rs 9,074 crore.

For the non-farm sector, Nabard extended refinance support of Rs 2,748 crore to banks, which included Rs 756 crore for rural housing.

In 2007-08, nearly 4.2 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) were provided bank loans to the tune of Rs 2,994 crore.

Refinance by Nabard was around Rs 1,615 crore, which was around 25 per cent higher than the previous year.

According to the bank, non-southern States now have a share of more than 50 per cent of credit-linked SHGs, unlike earlier when it was mainly concentrated in the southern States.

Balance sheet

The bank’s balance sheet size has increased to Rs 98,500 crore, against Rs 81,220 crore in the previous year.

The net operating surplus was around Rs 972 crore in 2007-08 (Rs 819 crore).

Mr Sarangi said that in 2007-08, 29.87 lakh Kisan Credit Cards were issued, taking the total number of cards issued to 7.06 crore.

Nabard plans to extend its support to 1 lakh farmers clubs from the current 25,000 through a technology transfer fund of Rs 25 crore.

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Nabard sets higher short-term refinance target of Rs 22,000 cr