From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Apr 3: The Karnataka Regional office of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has recorded an all-time high financial assistance of Rs 8,424 crore for the State’s agricultural and rural development during the year 2012-13, which marks a 40 per cent growth over the previous year.
NABARD has disbursed the highest ever investment credit support for banks to the extent of Rs1920 crore in the State, said NABARD’s Karnataka Regional Office Chief General Manager S N A Jinnah.
The huge Nabard assistance will improve the much needed capital formation for agriculture in the State, Jinnah said while addressing a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday.
In order to help the farmers in the consecutively drought affected State, NABARD has extended concessional crop production finance at 4.5% interest rate to the extent of Rs 5377 crore during 2012-13 to cooperative banks and RRBs.
With the full cooperation of the State Government, NABARD has disbursed Rs 750 crore of financial assistance to State Government for creating rural infrastructure in the State such as Raitha Samparka Kendras, Anganwadis, schools in rural areas, ITIs, rural roads and bridges.
In addition, Rs 326 crore has been given as a special line of credit to cooperative banks to meet the financial needs under the direct window system.
The major focus area is improving the income levels of our dryland farmers in the most drought prone State. In order to address agrarian distress, as many as 164 watershed projects covering over 2.21 lakh hactares in 24 districts were disbursed grant assistance of Rs 36 crore.
Under Tribal Development Programme, cumulatively 19,800 tribals have been provided financial support of Rs.9 crore and has taken initiatives to touch the lives of primitive tribes like Siddhis in Uttara Kannada and Soligas in BR Hills.
Farmers’ Clubs, association of progressive farmers in a group mode at village level, are expected to be a highly effective linkage between banks, agriculture technology institutions and markets.
An all time record number of 1417 Farmers’ Clubs have been formed during the year taking the total number of clubs to 8617 in the State. These Farmers’ Clubs will be federated into Farmers’ Club federations to nurture them to become producers’ collectives as well as aggregators for commodity exchanges etc.
Promoting producers’ collectives in the form of Producers’ Companies and Producers’ Cooperatives is a promising area for farmers and rural producers to realise economies of scale both in input procurement as well as in agri-produce marketing.
NABARD has also excelled in microfinance with as many as 80950 Self-Help Groups involving refinance of Rs 850 crore have been credit linked during the year.
NABARD intends to create more employment in rural sector by supporting micro enterprises, artisans, crafts persons and weavers and has supported RUDSETI for conduct of 28 Skill Development Programmes at a cost of Rs.17.41 lakh. As many as 576 artisans have been supported to participate in 20 exhibitions.
With the support of State Government, Vaidyanathan Committee Recommendations have been implemented quite successfully in Karnataka with recapitalisation assistance of Rs.643 crore to make both PACSs and DCCBs vibrant cooperative financial institutions. All DCCBs in the State have been licensed by the RBI.
NABARD is also facilitating the 11 DCCBs in the State to become full CBS compliant by June 2013, so that they can compete with commercial banks and provide direct cash transfer benefit to the clients.
In the coming years, NABARD intends to put more focus on improving income levels of farmers particularly in dry land areas, full coverage of farmers through smart Kisan Credit Cards, graduating SHGs to micro enterprises, bridging critical rural infrastructure gaps and facilitating credit plus services to artisans and weavers in the State.