Agriculture credit disbursement up

Up to November 2007, the flow of credit to agriculture from the scheduled banking sector was Rs 1,37,760 crore, about 61% of the annual target.

Encouraged by the achievement, Budget 2007-08 set a higher target of Rs 225,000 crore for disbursement of credit and further addition of 5 million new farmers as borrowers to the banking system, to improve credit flow to the agriculture sector, the government initiated a number of policy measures from time to time such as farm credit package and special agriculture credit plans.

In Budget 2006-07, finance minister P Chidambaram urged the banks (including cooperative banks and RRBs) to disburse Rs 1,75,000 crore as credit to agriculture sector during 2006-07. The overall achievement during 2006-07 was Rs 2,03,296 crore. Also, new farmers covered under the institutional credit system were 8.35 million against the target of 5 million.

During 2006-07, the total number of Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) issued were 85,11 lakh and the amount sanctioned was Rs 46,729 crore. As per the available information for 2007-08 (as on November 2007) the amount sanctioned was Rs 25,263 crore.

Also, the KCC scheme has now been extended to borrowers of the long-term cooperative credit structure, thus paving the way for the acceptance of KCCs as a single window for a comprehensive credit product.

To further give a fillip to

... contd.