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: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has maintained the allocation of Rs 18,000 crore under rural infrastructure development fund (RIDF) for 2009-10 too.In 2008,the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) had paid Rs 18,000 crore under RIDF. Of the Rs 18,000 crore, Rs 14,000 crore will be for RIDF and Rs 4,000 crore for the Prime Ministers' Gram Sadak Yojana. S Sridhar, CMD, Central Bank of India said,"We want to achieve our financial-inclusion targets through the technology and the business correspondent model. With this, marginal support from the government, I think, financing the lower income groups in the long run will be a profitable venture for the banks."
The National Food Security Act and the consequent proposal to provide 25 kg of wheat or rice at Rs 3 kg to all BPL families every month along with wage earning announcement under the National rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) will ensure food and nutritional security for the undernourished. Moreover, in 2008 the agriculture credit target of Rs 2,80,000 crore was achieved and it has been increased to Rs 3,25,000 crore in the current fiscal. This would meet the ever-increasing requirement of capital investment as well as cooperative loans for agriculture production and will help to achieve the desired 4% growth in agriculture. The self-help group (SHG) bank linkage programme has now become a pan indian phenomenon.
Millions of women have been linked to the banks through Nabard's SHG Bank linkage programme. This has been a major manner of enhancing financial inclusion and consequently inclusive growth. The government's emphasis on enhancing the SHG-bank linkage programme to cover at least 50% of rural women in next five years has re-emphasised the need to upscale this programme particularly in hitherto low coverage states. RM Malla, CMD, Sidbi said that the FM’s move in providing Rs 4,000 crore through RIDF was welcome. This would enable Sidbi to widen its resource base and thereby augmenting higher credit flow to the MSE sector through banks and state financial corporations. “We will formulate a special refinance scheme, in consultation with the department of financial services, the ministry of dinance for this purpose. The refinance would be to the extent of 50% of incremental lending to the MSE sector.”
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