Nabard’s
annual press conference
Charting
and presenting the annual performance of Nabard
The
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) organised
its annual press meet on April 8, 2003, presided over by YC Nanda,
Chairman Nabard. The statistics presented by Mr Nanda showed that
the financial operations of the bank in the year 2002-03 witnessed
7.3 per cent growth over the previous year with the aggregate financial
support provided to various banks and State Governments amounting
to Rs 22,696.01 crore compared to Rs 21,145.65 crore in 2001-02.
The
aggregate disbursements of refinance for creation of farm and non-farm
assets under term investment during 2002-03 touched a high of Rs
7,418.71 crore as against Rs 6,683 crore in 2001-02 registering
a growth of 11 per cent. The major observations over the off-take
of Nabard’s refinance during 2002-03 are as under:
- Activity-wise,
non-farm sector including rural housing got the highest share
of total refinance at Rs 2,001.63 crore followed by farm mechanisation
at Rs 992.19 crore, dairy development at Rs 903.89 crore and minor
irrigation at Rs 873.10 crore. The share of Self Help Groups (SHG)
was Rs 623.39 crore accounting to 8.4 per cent of the total refinance.
-
Among the states, UP availed the highest amount of refinance (Rs
l,174.64 crore) followed by Andhra Pradesh (Rs 761.34 crore),
Tamil Nadu (Rs 682.86 crore), Maharashtra (Rs 589.60 crore) and
Punjab (Rs 573.31 crore). The off-take of refinance in these five
states aggregated to Rs 3,882.75 crore accounting for 51 per cent
of the total refinance. It may be mentioned here that the disbursement
in the north-eastern region (including Sikkim) went up from Rs
83.03 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 123.31 crore in 2002-03, exhibiting
a growth of 48.5 per cent.
- The
State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (SCARDBS)
continued to draw the largest share of refinance at Rs 2,853.50
crore followed by State Cooperative Banks at Rs 1,783.73 crore,
and Commercial Banks at Rs 1,241.54 crore.
The
SHG-Bank Linkage Programme supported by Nabard emerged as the single
largest micro-finance programme in the world in terms of outreach.
During 2002-03, over 2.40 lakh SHGs were provided loans by banks,
benefiting over 38 lakh poor families. Of the 2.40 lakh SHGs, more
than 1 lakh were credit linked in the states other than southern
states, dispelling the criticism that SHG Bank linkage movement
was not expanding much in other states besides southern states.
The
corporate mission set by Nabard for providing micro-finance services
to the very poor, envisages coverage of one-third of the rural poor
of the country. That is, a population of about 100 million rural
poor through one million SHGs by year 2006-07. The achievements
of the Bank during 2002-03 reinforced this commitment by involving
over 2,000 agencies comprising of banks, NGOs farmers clubs and
local bodies to enhance the functioning of SHGs.
Team
Netscribes
