The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has projected the State’s credit potential for the financial year 2021-22 at ₹1,35,780.33 crore, 18.5% higher than the previous year’s ₹1,14,578 crore.
Farm credit gets the lion’s share of the total credit potential at ₹72,321.93 crore, almost ₹9,000 crore more than the current fiscal’s ₹63,388 crore and the ancillary activities like food processing accounted to ₹8,281.3 crore against the ₹7,812.22 crore projected for the current financial year. Credit potential for agriculture infrastructure was pegged at ₹2,764 crore against the ₹2,484 crore in the credit plan released by the bank in the presence of Finance Minister T. Harish Rao on Friday.
Credit potential for MSMEs too received due attention with an estimated ₹39,361.13 crore, over ₹10,000 crore higher than the ₹28,577.64 crore projected for the fiscal 2020-21. Housing credit was projected at ₹8,640.21 crore while the projection for education was at ₹2,347.85 crore against ₹8,149.86 crore and ₹2,256.26 crore projected respectively for the year 2020-21.
NABARD chief general manager Y.K. Rao said four major thrust areas — farm mechanisation, oil palm cultivation, farmer producer organisations and agriculture infrastructure fund — were identified by the bank for the next fiscal in view of major interventions taken up by the State government as well as the bank.
Mr. Harish Rao thanked NABARD for implementing his suggestions as part of the year’s plan and said the credit plans should be designed keeping in view the needs and aspirations of farmers. Elaborating on the strides made in Telangana in the priority sector, he said that the State registered cultivation in over 65 lakh acres last rabi, which was much higher than the normal of around 30 lakh.
The sector was facing new challenges in areas like shortage of labour, inadequate storage space, cold storages and processing and packing. These need to be addressed in right earnest and action plans should be evolved accordingly to provide loans to farmers to cater to their needs. Harvesting equipment should reach farmers’ doorsteps while focus should be on quality, processing and packaging in view of the significant enhancement in production over and above the requirements mandating exports abroad.
“Only increase in productivity will not benefit farmers, efforts should be made to reduce the production costs to help them,” he said. In this context, he stressed the need for encouraging cultivation of oil palm and NABARD could render its assistance in this direction. Efforts should also be made to adapt new agricultural practices and NABARD should provide loans to graduates in agriculture related studies.
State Planning Board vice-chairman B. Vinod Kumar said that agricultural production in the State had increased manifold post bifurcation, but there was no commensurate increase in the income of farmers.
