FM for long term agri investment to meet food demand

He asked NABARD to continue addressing the inadequacies in rural finance market

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said there is a need for long term investment in agriculture for meeting future food demands of the country.

He asked the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to continue addressing the inadequacies in rural finance market and "thereby enhance its unique apex development bank status" for development of agriculture and rural sector.

Jaitley was addressing the Board of Directors of NABARD.

Emphasising the need to support rural housing, he appreciated NABARD's efforts in allocating Rs 3,000 crore by way of refinance.

He advised NABARD to continue to provide "leadership" in areas such as financial inclusion, farm credit to the small and marginal farmers besides those farmers who do not have clear title deeds to the farms they till.

The Finance Minister also noted that NABARD had effectively utilised the initial corpus of Rs 5,000 crore of Long Term Rural Credit Fund allocated in the budget.

He also launched two NABARD supported e-commerce portals - ekraftindia and shilpicraft - for marketing of handicrafts and artisan products of Self Help Groups (SHGs).

A roadmap for digitisation of SHGs across the country was also unveiled on the occasion.

There are 73 lakh SHGs in the country and digitisation is expected to lead to better participation of the members of the SHGs in the Jan Dhan Yojna.

NABARD Board comprises of Secretaries of Central Government, Deputy Governor of RBI and Additional Chief Secretaries of select States.