NABARD pegs Telangana credit plan at Rs 1.35 lakh crore

Hyderabad: NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development ) has pegged the State credit plan for Telangana in 2021-2022 at Rs 1.35 lakh crore as against Rs 1.14 lakh crore in the previous year. State Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Friday released the state credit plan at the State Level Bankers' Committee (SLBC) meeting held here.

The highest allocation of Rs 72,321 crore has been earmarked for farm credit which includes farm mechanisation, water resources, crop production, maintenance and marketing, Dairy, poultry, sheep, goat and fisheries. To improve the agriculture infrastructure, the bank earmarked Rs 2,764 crore and for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises it is estimated Rs 39,361 crore.

Releasing the Credit Plan, the Finance Minister appealed to the bankers prepare action plans and credit plans in tune with the financial requirement of the farming community. Currently, he said the major challenges are labour scarcity, godowns, cold storages and processing and packaging facility and increase the income levels of the farmers. He stressed the banks should extend help to promote food processing industry in a big way by offering loans and funds.

He expressed serious concern over increasing drop outs in the schools during the time of plucking the cotton balls as poor students were hired as labour in many cotton growing villages in the State. The mechanisation of crop processing is the need of the hour to tide over the labour shortage. Harish also requested the bank to extend loans liberally to the farmers for palm oil and edible oil seeds cultivation.

The irrigation potential created by the Telangana government through many irrigation projects helped to address the irrigation water scarcity in the newly formed Telangana State in just six years, he said and added that students who pursue agriculture courses should also be provided education loans on par with the students of other professional courses are offered.State Finance Secretary K Ramakrishna Rao, NABARD Chairman and Managing Director Ramkrishna were also present.