Nabard increases agri credit estimate

Nabard has proposed a credit estimate of Rs 23,264 crore under the priority sector lendings in Haryana during 2007-08.

Of the Rs 23,264 crore projected, crop loan share will be 54 per cent (Rs 12,716 cr), followed by agricultural and allied sector term loan (capital formative investment credit) at 14 per cent (Rs 3,156 crore), non-farm sector (NFS) at 17 per cent (Rs 3,895 crore) and other priority sector at 15 per cent (Rs 3,497 crore). This is against the Rs 8,428 crore projected during 2006-07.

The intra-distribution of the agri capital formative investment credit estimate is reflective of Haryana's ongoing thrust on sustaining Green and White Revolutions.

The paper duly focussed on the current concerns of the state on the agricultural front viz deteriorating soil health, falling groundwater table and the need for crop diversification, agro-processing, and modernisation of agri marketing infrastructure (legal and physical).

Issues of rural indebtedness, financial exclusion particularly among the tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and tardiness in micro finance takeoff also figure prominently in the paper.

Further, the paper also gives a good account of the state's potential on renewable sources of energy that can be harnessed through credit. So to ensure that the fruits of ongoing corporate retail revolution reach the small and marginal farmers, Punjab and Haryana regional office of Nabard is taking the help of participatory organisations, like NGOs, Farmers' Clubs and SHGs to organise them into producer group/company.

This would help them to pool their land and other resources, reap advantage of scale and gain access to corporate retail outlets with enough produce in hands, hence with good bargaining power.