The Hindu Business Line : `Rural infrastructure fund gets more, gives more'

THE Managing Director of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), Mr Y.S.P. Thorat, has said flow of funds to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) has increased significantly in the last fiscal.

Addressing presspersons here on Monday, Mr Thorat said thrust must be given to rural infrastructure development to grow agricultural credit.

Apart from flow of funds to RIDF, the quality of projects and their monitoring have also increased significantly. Total disbursement sanctions in RIDF went up to Rs 42,000 crore last year, Mr Thorat said.

Stating that concerns still remained in the north-eastern and eastern regions, he said flow of funds to RIDF should be increased there.

Mr Thorat said 78 lakh new farmers availed themselves of agriculture credit last year and 777 new agri-clinics were opened. Around five crore new kisan credit cards were issued. Refinance flow, including liquidity support, from Nabard significantly increased.

To a query on the packages for the co-operative sector, Mr Thorat said the recommendations of the Vaidyanathan Committee included a strong incentive package. This includes nearly Rs 15,000 crore in aggregate for cleaning the balance sheets of co-operative banks at all levels. The report prescribes incentives coupled with tough conditionalities for co-operatives.

When told that some States were opposing the recommendations of the report, he said Gujarat had expressed its willingness to accept the report.

Stating that Nabard needed to do more advocacy and explain this report to a large cross section, Mr Thorat said he had made a presentation on the report to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He would meet the Finance Minister of West Bengal shortly in this regard.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Boosting fee-based income — Allow banks to hard-sell priced services

Rupee moves up; bonds decline

Centurion Q1 net zooms to Rs 11 cr

Nicco UCO Alliance NPAs at Rs 225 cr

`Rural infrastructure fund gets more, gives more'

OBC's mobile top-up facility

IDBI hires consultant for insurance foray

Govt, sponsors discuss future of UTI Mutual Fund

Dena Bank to trim net NPAs to 2 pc

Call to include micro-finance in district credit plans