Maha ups FY19 agri lending target 12 per cent to Rs 85k crore

Bankers today decided to lend Rs 85,464 crore to the farm sector in Maharashtra, a growth of 12 per cent over the previous year, amid a prolonged weakness in agricultural activity.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the State Level Banking Committee (SLBC), chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and attended by NABARD and the Reserve Bank officials here.

The credit disbursement plan approved by the committee included Rs 58,319 crore in crop loans and Rs 27,145 crore for capital investments in the sector.

While presenting the annual budget for fiscal 2018-19, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced a 10 per cent increase in agri lending to Rs 11 lakh crore.

Maharashtra is staring at an 8.3 per cent dip in agriculture growth in fiscal 2017-18 on account of decreased production of food-grains, pulses and cotton crops, according to the annual Economic Survey.

Stating that the farm sector is his Government's topmost priority, Fadnavis expressed displeasure over the shortfall in disbursement in 2017-18 and asked banks to have a more focused strategy to finance farmers.

"Our credit plan for next season is increased, achieving it is most important now. We don't want to increase the gap between the targeted and actual disbursement," the CM said.

He asked banks to put emphasis on agri processing sector.

Around 37 lakh farmer accounts have received benefit of the state's crop loan waiver scheme till now, Fadnavis said.

"We should now focus on financing them and reaching out to them, giving information of various schemes," he said.

The chief minister said interactive approach and engagement by banks towards farmers is the need of the hour. "We have institutional mechanism in place, but only due to lack of dialogue and communication, farmers rely on private money lenders," he said.