Nabard cuts refinance rate by 0.20 pc

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) today reduced refinance rate for banks and other lending agencies by 0.20 per cent to promote rural credit and rural infrastructure.
The refinance rate has been reduced by 0.20 per cent and the revised rate of interest on refinance for a period of five years for commercial banks, state cooperative banks, regional rural banks and primary urban cooperative banks will be 9.70 per cent, down from 9.90 per cent, Nabard said in a statement.
The new rates are effective from January 7, it said.
Further, banks drawing refinance of Rs 500 crore and more in a single drawal will be allowed further reduction of 0.10 per cent, making the effective rate 9.60 per cent, it said.

However, for state cooperative agriculture and rural development banks (SCRDBs), a 0.10 per cent reduction is allowed for a single drawal of Rs 200 crore and above.
These measures are expected to give a boost to banks for extending investment credit and creation of much-needed warehousing infrastructure for agricultural commodities in the country, Nabard said.

Besides, Nabard has initiated a slew of measures, including warehousing scheme as decided at the board meeting held here yesterday.
The board meeting chaired by Nabard Chairman Harsh Kumar Bhanwala approved the launch of three crop specific pilot projects with production and post-production interventions to be implemented through Primary Agriculture Co-operative Society (PACS).

The three pilot projects include business models for potato in Hooghly district, West Bengal, tomato in Karnal district, Haryana, and onion in Nasik district, Maharashtra.
The total outlay for the projects is Rs 37.20 crore, comprising loan and grant support from Nabard of Rs 18.43 crore and Rs 2.43 crore respectively and a subsidy support of Rs 16.34 crore from the Central/State Governments.
It has sanctioned 548 warehousing projects in seven states amounting to Rs 1,046 crore under the Nabard Warehousing Scheme (NWS).
These projects on completion will create an additional storage scientific space of 11.30 lakh MT for agriculture commodities and also help in better price discovery for farmers.

NWS has been formulated as per the announcement made in the Budget with a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore. The scheme envisages financial support for construction of warehouses, godowns, silos, cold storages and cold chain infrastructure to store agriculture produce, both in public and private sectors.