The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, popularly known as NABARD on Thursday announced its plan to give Rs 1.20 lakh crore crop loan to farmers so that they could meet production expenses in the current financial year. NABARD, the apex agriculture financial institution yearly disburses Rs 90,000 crore crop loan at a concessional rate. But due to Covid-19 pandemic, this year it will give Rs 1.20 lakh crore.
Out of the total amount, Rs 40,000 crore has already been paid, Chairman of NABARD, G R Chintala said. Chintala said that the Covid-19 pandemic saw a paradigm shift in the working of the agriculture sector, and with the help of Rs 1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) under the Atmanirbhar Bharat package would foster infrastructure for the farm sector.
NABARD in a statement said that under the scheme, Rs 10,000 crore has been kept for the current fiscal & Rs 30,000 crore each year for the next 3 years. This will play a vital role in flowing credit for setting up agriculture infrastructure at the ground level and will also generate 25 lakh tonnes of capacities under the AIF.
Chintala further said we are also associating with many commercial banks to provide credit to micro food processing units connected with the local Kirana units. He added that with the imminent launch of the scheme for promotion of 10,000 FPOs in India, the farm sector will experience quality production combined with an industry-centric vision.
Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala recommended NABARD to digitise the crop loan subvention scheme procedure so that the farmers can settle the loans at 0% in real-time and flawlessly.
Chairman and managing director of ITC, Sanjiv Puri said Covid-19 pandemic has made businesses come out from survival to revival phase, and now post Coronavirus, there will be the 'Next Normal' where path-breaking digitally-driven reforms would change the trends forever. An important achievement has been the speed and eagerness of the digital penetration that has been achieved that otherwise could have taken years to attain.
