Nabard to front-load 25,000 cr to RRBs

Guntur: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) will provide special liquidity facility (SLF) of Rs 25,000 crore to regional rural banks (RRBs), cooperative banks and micro finance institutions during 2020-21. Nabard AP chief general manager S Selvaraj said in a statement on Thursday that the SLF was a front-loaded liquidity support provided to the banks with a view to ensuring continued flow of credit to the farmers to carry out their agriculture operations smoothly even during Covid-19 pandemic period. Under the previous practice, the Nabard would refinance RRBs based on their advances under farm credit, but the SLF facilitates direct injection of funds to the banks.

He further said that an amount of Rs 2,500 crore was allocated to rural financial institutions in the state, of which an amount of Rs 1,300 crore has been released to 13 District Cooperative Central Banks and Rs 1,200 crore to four RRBs in the state by Nabard.

He felt that this line of credit will help the banks in augmenting their financial resources for providing uninterrupted credit to farmers under Kisan Credit Cards and issue of fresh Kisan Credit Cards to all eligible farmers in the state to rejuvenate their agriculture operations at ground level during this difficult situation for kharif season.