Banks should give credit to aid the development of micro and small scale industries and facilitate employment generation, Collector L. Subramanian has said.
Releasing the 2014-15 Annual Credit Plan (ACP) for Rs. 6, 290 crore for the district here on Thursday, he said the sum was Rs 770.99 crore higher than that of last year. Stating that focus would be on development of small scale industries, Mr. Subramanian said Rs. 1,229.56 crore had been allotted for this sector, which was 26 per cent higher than that of previous year’s ACP.
The credit plan was released in the presence of bankers from across the district. Agriculture and Micro and Small Enterprises got a huge chunk of the credit allocation. A sum of Rs. 3,523.56 crore has been allocated for the agriculture sector, an increase of 9.48 per cent from funds allotted last year
“A disbursement of Rs. 2,384.64 has been projected for crop loans, the highest among agriculture credit. Plantation and horticulture, farm mechanisation, minor irrigation and land development are the other thrust areas,” Mr. Subramanian said.
Other priority sectors such as education loans, housing loans, micro credit and retail trade also got an increase of 15.99 per cent over last year. Mr. Subramanian made a special mention about efficient disbursal of education loans by banks in the past year and sought the cooperation of bankers in the coming year as well.
Among the banks in the district, State Bank of India has the largest share in the credit plan this year followed by Canara Bank and Indian Overseas Bank (IOB).
K. Hariharan, Deputy General Manager, Canara Bank (Lead Bank), received the first copy of the plan from the Collector.
K. Arunmani, Project Director, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and R. Shankar Narayanan, Assistant General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), were among those present.
