Nabard support to TN, Puducherry up 47%

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) on Tuesday said the financial support extended by it in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry witnessed a growth of 47 per cent to Rs 6,318.27 crore in 2011-12 from Rs 4,288 crore in 2010-11.

Lalitha Venkatesan, chief general manager, said the bank had sanctioned Rs 1,339.15 crore to Tamil Nadu and Rs 139.88 crore to Puducherry under its Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) for creating infrastructure facilities such as irrigation works, drinking water projects, veterinary institutions, roads and bridges.

Under the Rs 2,000-crore exclusive corpus announced in the Union Budget for 2011-12 for creation of warehousing facilities, Tamil Nadu had availed of Rs 261.23 crore for construction of rural godowns and cold storage units while Puducherry took Rs 1.53 crore. This will lead to a creation of warehousing capacity of 470,000 mt.

 

In its investment credit portfolio for capital formation in agriculture, refinance support extended to all banks stood at Rs 1,040 crore. Refinance for crop loans was at Rs 2,620 crore and Rs 330 crore for other short-term purposes. Further, refinance support was extended to cooperative banks for financing weavers societies to the extent of Rs 230 crore.

Under the new line of credit opened during the year for supporting the state governments and state-owned corporations/organisations for creation of rural infrastructure, outside the ambit of RIDF, a loan of Rs 354 crore was released to Tangedco for restoring electrical infrastructure in Villupuram district affected by Thane cyclone. Besides, it had sanctioned Rs 2.79 crore to Producers’ Organisations.

Another initiative launched during the year was to facilitate implementation of core banking solutions (CBS) in cooperative banks in the state to enable them offer services and products on a par with commercial banks and participate in the financial inclusion drive effectively. All central cooperative banks in TN had joined the CBS platform and the project was likely to be completed by end December, said Venkatesan.

A pilot project on converting Kisan Credit Card to cashless transactions through mobile phones was also launched through Pallavan Grama Bank.

As on date, more than 6,000 farmers have been enrolled and transactions to the tune of Rs 24 lakh have been carried out. The project is currently being implemented in all the districts covered by regional rural banks.