Virendra Singh Rawat / Lucknow
Apex farm sector refinancer National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has estimated Uttar Pradesh’s rural sector credit potential at Rs 3.75 trillion for the financial year 2023-24.
According to the UP State Focus Paper released by NABARD here yesterday, the estimated credit potential of Rs.3.75 lakh crore is 8 percent higher compared to 2022-23.
This implies greater credit flow to the UP rural economy, thus bolstering investment and capital formation in the state farm and allied sectors.
The State Focus Paper is an aggregation of Potential-Linked Credit Plan (PLP) for all the 75 districts of UP for priority sector lending. It includes both short term and long term credit for agriculture and other allied activities, MSME and other priority sector areas.
Of the total credit outgo projections, the credit potential for agriculture has been pegged at Rs 2.32 trillion, followed by MSME Rs 1.05 trillion and other priority sector Rs 37,000 crore.
Meanwhile, UP chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra exhorted the banking sector to proactively augment the credit deposit (CD) ratio so that it fosters the socioeconomic development of the state.
The Yogi Adityanath government has advocated the use of modern technology for expeditious sanctioning of loans to contribute towards the goal of making UP a $trillion economy in the next five years.
“In view of the ample water available in Eastern UP, efforts need to be made by all stakeholders for making UP a water-based economy,” he underscored.
NABARD chief general manager S K Dora emphasised upon the Bank’s credit window for ushering in rural development including the support to the farmers’ producer organisation (FPO) for promoting rural prosperity.
The State Focus Paper contains the projected outlay for next fiscal. It entails the aggregate of credit potential under different sectors of the economy, both farm and non-farm, the status of infrastructure under each sector/sub sector and critical gaps in different districts.
Under RBI guidelines, this is part of the decentralised credit planning undertaken by NABARD through a consultative process to estimate credit potential in various sectors of the economy.
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Depending upon this Plan, the commercial banks prepare Annual Credit Plan (ACP) for UP, fixing individual bank targets under the Lead Bank Scheme.