Nabard extends nearly Rs 13,000 cr to AP

Loans given to the Andhra Pradesh government and banks by the regional office of  the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) registered a growth of 39 per cent and stood at Rs 12,867 crore during 2012-13.

According to Nabard, this is for the first time that its financial assistance during a year had crossed the Rs 10,000-crore mark. Crop loans released to farmers accounted for bulk of this assistance amounting to Rs 7,986 crore.

Nabard also supported capital formation in agriculture by providing term loan refinance to banks to the tune of Rs 2,879 crore. A lion’s share of this amount was made available to self-help groups (SHGs) for their lending needs.

The state government was also able to utilise Rs 1,421 crore of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) during the year. “This is the second highest utilisation of the cost-effective central fund in the country,” it stated in a release on Wednesday.

The RIDF had been set up by the Centre to support creation of rural infrastructure like providing better road connectivity and  establishment of warehouses, market yards and educational institutions among other things.

Currently, there are 475 watershed projects in the state entirely funded by Nabard. It had so far sanctioned Rs 458 crore, including Rs 108 crore in 2012-13, for these projects.

In the last financial year, Nabard said it had trained 9,000 youth in the rural areas as a part of its effort to promote self-employment and entrepreneurship.