NABARD’s long-term loan segment saw 17 per cent growth

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) saw a 17 per cent growth in long term refinance due to the stress on boosting the long-term loan segment through refinance. The balance sheet of the institution stands at Rs 4, 06,473 crore.

Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD said, “Boosting long term credit for capital formation, banking technology for rural financial institutions, enhancing area under irrigation, improving irrigation efficiency and rural housing stayed at top on our ‘To-Do List’ during 2017-18.”

NABARD stated that as against the target of Rs 10 lakh crore, actual agri credit flow during 2017-18 stood at Rs 10.46 lakh crore (provisional data -term loans – Rs. 3,69,624 crore; crop loans – Rs 6,76,653 crore) as on 28 February 2018. NABARD’s refinance played a catalytic role in the ground level credit flow. Its total refinance disbursements of Rs 1, 45,061 (Long term: Rs 65,240 crore + Short term: Rs 79,821 crore) were about 14 per cent of the total ground level credit. In case of RRBs and Cooperative Banks, the same was nearly 55 per cent of their total disbursements.

A significant development this year was diversification of NABARD’s client base with loan disbursements of Rs 3,900 crore to Small Finance Banks and Rs 2,794 crore to NBFCs/ NBFC-MFIs.

The Cooperative Banks witnessed significant progress in their transition to digital banking during the year 2017-18 with 350 Cooperative Banks supported by NABARD for on boarding to RuPay Kisan Card (RKC) platform as on 31 March 2018. These banks issued 1.76 crore RKCs during the period. RRBs increased their tally to 1.13 crore in FY 2017-18.

During 2017-18, NABARD spent Rs 293.79 crore under the Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) towards a host of initiatives like Financial literacy camps, demonstration of banking technology through ATM vans, centers for financial literacy and various other types of capacity building projects.