The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has pegged the aggregate credit potential in the agricultural and allied sectors of Uttar Pradesh at Rs 2.94 trillion for the financial year 2020-21, growing at 9.7 per cent. However, the growth rate has for the first time slipped to single digit in past several years.
The new figures were revealed in the NABARD’s State Focus Paper (SFP) unveiled by UP Finance Minister Suresh Khanna. He said it would eventually help in realising the target of UP becoming a $1 trillion economy by 2024. The credit flow to the state farm and agro sectors will reach agricultural and allied segments viz. crop production, animal husbandry, fisheries, rural housing, water resources, plantation, horticulture, rural infrastructure, renewable energy, export, education etc.
Of the credit potential, the short term crop loan accounts for the major share of Rs 1.40 trillion nearly 48 per cent of the total estimates, followed by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) with credit flow of Rs 63,000 crore or more than 21 per cent. It is likely to aid the MSME sector’s flagship One District One Product (ODOP) scheme, which has now been replicated by the Centre in Union Budget 2020-21.
Meanwhile, Rs 34,000 credit potential has been estimated for farm allied segments, such as horticulture, dairy, fisheries etc, while Rs 18,265 crore has been estimated as the credit flow to rural housing.
SFP is part of the RBI initiated decentralised credit planning by NABARD to estimate credit potential in different sectors of an economy. Based on the SFP, the commercial banks prepare Annual Credit Plan (ACP) for UP, fixing individual bank targets under the Lead Bank Scheme.
First Published: Tue, February 11 2020. 13:50 IST