NABARD conducts seminar

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Nagaland Regional office, Dimapur, conducted the State Credit Seminar for 2009-10 on March 20 at Hotel Saramati conference hall.
Inaugurating the seminar, minister for agriculture, Dr. Chumben Murry, said as agriculture is as the mainstay of the economy in the state at the same time continues to be main source of livelihood and employment for majority of the population particularly that of rural areas where 82 percent of the population live.
“Acceleration of growth of agricultural sector would not only push the overall GDP, but also render the growth more inclusive in line with the projections set out in the XIth Five Year Plan,” the minister said.
“In order to achieve the growth rate of 10 percent envisaged in the XIth Five Year Plan, it is expected that the agriculture sector would have to grow at 4 percent during the current five year plan period. All out efforts are required to increase the growth rate and maintain the tempo of growth of agricultural sector,” Dr. Chumben added.
D.Y Sema, power minister, who also attended the seminar said that the State Focus Paper 2009-10 which has been prepared by NABARD was the culmination of a massive exercise undertaken by them throughout the state for assessing the sector wise exploitable potential, available infrastructure and other support services as also the policies of the Government of India and the state government.
The document, he said was to be used as reference material by banks in preparing their ‘Annual Action Plans’ and by line departments in planning for suitable infrastructure support.
He also lauded that the infrastructure developed under RIDF initiated by NABARD which have touched the life of rural masses and brought about transformation of rural economy in the state.
The power minister later acknowledged the support extended by NABARD for rural infrastructure development of the state. NABARD has sanctioned Rs. 441.44 crore under RIDF for 485 projects and so far 218 Rural Infrastructure Projects have been completed and many projects are in implementation stage. NABARD has disbursed Rs.196.58 crore to the State Government for rural infrastructure development under RIDF. These projects will result in creation of irrigation potential of 7037 hectare, rural roads of 1128 km, 2 bridges, integrated land development of 12575 ha and production of 31 MW electricity.
K C Panda, DGM, NABARD, regional office, in his presentation provided an overview of the credit planning exercise NABARD has undertaken for Nagaland for the year 2009 -10.
He indicated that NABARD has prepared Potential Linked Credit Plans (PLPs) for all 11 districts of the state which form the basis of preparing the district-wise Annual Credit Plan of the Banks. The aggregate of credit disbursement potentials for all districts together for the year 2009-10 has been pegged at Rs 210.31 crore with crop loan share at 9% (Rs 18.37 crore), agricultural and allied sector term loan at 31 % (Rs. 66.11 crore), non-farm sector (NFS) at 19 % (Rs 39.62 crore), other priority sector at 37% (Rs 77.68 crore) and Agro & Food Processing Sector at 4%( Rs. 8.51 crore. All banks have therefore been advised to gear up their efforts to channelise credit to those sectors that have potential for exploitation. The seminar discussed the sector-wise credit plan outlay and the issues that are critical to achieve the same. The agriculture sectors that need to be focused for credit dispensation by the banks in 2009-10 as identified by NABARD include, inter alia, horticulture, animal husbandry, minor irrigation, land development, and fisheries sector.
The seminar saw participation from senior State Government officials of the Agri and allied sector Depts, ICAR, KVK; SLBC Convenor (SBI), senior bankers of Commercial Banks, Nagaland State Cooperative Bank, Nagaland Rural Bank, NEDFi and SIDBI.
In the seminar, director of ICAR (NRC-M) and Solomon also spoke on the occasion.
The Seminar also discussed the various aspects of Financial Inclusion in the wake of implementation of Dr. Rangaranjan Committee recommendations on the subject. The seminar emphasized on evolution of suitable strategies to ensure that all the households that are lacking financial services are covered by the banks in next 3-5 years by adoption and application of suitable technology It was pointed out that the Financial Inclusion Fund and Financial Inclusion Technology Fund created in NABARD with the objective of extending support for improvement of banking system, adoption of new models and technology could be availed of by the banking system for facilitating achievement of greater financial inclusion.
It may be mentioned that NABARD, as the apex institution, since its inception on July 12, 1982, has been contributing significantly to the cause of agriculture and rural development as an active partner of the State Government and Banking system. Their intervention for development of the Agriculture & Allied sector as well as rural non farm sector, creation of rural infrastructure and upscaling of Self Help Groups bank linkage, other developmental interventions for skill upgradation and capacity building and overall economic development of rural people has been commendable.