The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has pegged the Potential Linked Credit Plan (PLP) for the Union Territory of Puducherry at ₹3,457.14 crore for 2021-22.
The PLP outlay defines the potential available in Puducherry for bank finance during the next year. This would be utilised by banks for preparation of annual credit plan for branches in the U.T. The PLP 2021-22 projection is 5.3% more than that of the PLP projection for 2020-21.
Under the broad sector-wise break-up of the projections, the highest outlay of 52% goes to crop production, maintenance, marketing, agriculture term loan, agriculture infrastructure including food and agro processing, followed by 24% each for MSME sector and other priority sectors (which include export credit, education, housing, renewable energy and social infrastructure).
Revenue Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan released the PLP at the second meeting of the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) by handing over first copies to M.K. Bhattacharya, Executive Director, Indian Bank; K. Mahesh, Secretary, Housing, Town and Country Planning; and Padma Jaiswal, Secretary, Economics and Statistics.
Minister’s appeal
Mr. Shahjahan requested banks to encourage growth of MSME sector as it generated more employment and wanted them to make detailed assessment of market situation and guide the youths to start viable projects. Women SHGs need to be encouraged as the rate of recovery and financial management was better by these SHGs, he said.
V. Vaithilingam, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), urged the banks to provide more loans to assist the revival of the urban economy that had come to a standstill due to the pandemic.
S.M.N. Swamy, Chief General Manager, Reserve Bank of India, Chennai; Sreepathy Kalkura, Deputy General Manager, NABARD; M. Nagarajan, General Manager, Indian Bank, Chennai; S. Senthil Kumar, Zonal Manager and Convenor, SLBC, Indian Bank; T. Dhanraj, General Manager, Indian Bank, Corporate Office, Chennai; A. Udayakumar, Lead District Manager; Margaret Latetia, chairperson, Puduvai Bharatiar Grama Bank; Uday Kumar, LDM Indian Bank; and Uma Gurumurthy, AGM, NABARD.
Executives and officials from all banks and senior officials from various departments of Union Territory of Puducherry participated.
According to NABARD officials, assessment of potential under various sectors had been made keeping in view the growth trends, current levels of achievement, changes in unit costs, revised scales of finance and trends in credit flow.
It had factored in priority sector guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India as well as the priorities of the Government of India to scale up lending to various sectors of the economy and doubling of farmers’ income by 2022.
