Agriculture gets major share of funds in annual credit plan

The Annual Credit Plan (ACP) for Salem district envisaging a total credit outlay of Rs. 5,020.44 crores for 2016-2017 was released here on Thursday.

The plan prepared by Indian Bank, the lead bank of the district, was released by District Collector V. Sampath, in the presence of C. R. Gopalakrishnan, Deputy General Manager, Indian Bank. The project outlay works out to 10 per cent higher than the projection for 2015-16 with an increase of Rs. 407.39 crores. The ACP will benefit 4.73 lakh beneficiaries under priority sector as per the revised classification.

Lion’s share in the ACP goes to agriculture sector. Allocation to agriculture and allied activities is Rs.3,333.51 crores constituting 66.40 per cent of the total credit outflow. The outlay this year under agriculture sector is Rs.434.79 crores higher than the last year’s outlay. About Rs.2216.60 crores has been earmarked for crop loan. More thrust has been given for investment purposes like horticulture (Rs. 101.45 crores), farm mechanisation (Rs. 110.17 crores); allied activities like dairy, poultry and sheep (Rs. 494.51 crores).

The allocation of Rs. 515.02 crores to micro, small and medium enterprises sector constitutes 10.25 per cent of the total outlay.

The other priority sector has been allocated Rs.1,171.91 crores constituting 23.34 per cent of the total outlay. This included allocation for education loan (Rs.145.70 crores) and housing loan (Rs. 350.82 crores).

As per the revised priority sector, Rs. 23.89 crores has been allocated to renewable energy, Rs. 18.41 crores for social infrastructure and Rs 7.70 crore for export credit.

Out of the total plan, the share of commercial banks is Rs. 4,113.14 crores (81.92 per cent); cooperatives is Rs.760.70 crores (15.16 per cent); regional rural banks is Rs. 130.60 crores (2.60 per cent) and that of TIIC is Rs.16.00 crores (0.32 per cent).

S. Ravindran, Assistant General Manager, Reserve Bank of India, Bhama Buvaneswari, Assistant General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and A. Udayakumar, Lead District Manager were present.