Bhubaneswar: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has assessed a credit potential of Rs. 66,500 crore for Odisha under the priority sectors, based on which, the state has directly prepared the targets for credit deployment for the banks. Sri Shashi Bhusan Behera, Minister, Finance and Excise said the role of NABARD in Odisha is praiseworthy.
Minister Sri Behera was speaking in a celebration organised by NABARD on its 36th Foundation Day and has urged it to take awareness programmes on financial management, water and soil conservation etc in a proactive manner. Lauding the role of NABARD, the Minister said that the economy of Odisha is striding through a growth trajectory in the recent years and the state has been able to achieve respectable growth rates, raising the per capita income and the human development index. He also emphasized on the growth of connectivity, rural development, SHGs bank linkages and other similar economic indicators.
NABARD has performed well in the field of creation of infrastructure, development of the irrigation projects, strengthening of cooperative institutions in the construction of godowns, SHG bank Linkage programmes, tribal development programmes and support to improve the livelihood, said Minister Sri Behera.
It was revealed in the meeting that NABARD has assisted substantially for rural connectivity like roads and bridges, irrigation and agriculture. On Irrigation Funds, NABARD has extended grand support of over 10 crore during 2016-17 for various activities promoting financial inclusion. It has initiated digitization of SHGs in Jagatshinghpur district to Mission Shakti Programme through building e-records. It has given a financial support to the tune of 156 crore for construction of godowns in 398 PACs, with estimated storage capacity of 1.94 lakh Matric Ton. It is implementing 51 WADI Projects in 19 districts of state with financial assistance of 171 crore under its tribal development programme under which 44300 tribal families will get benefits. NABARD has extended grand support of 33.60 crore during 2016-17 to various Agencies for promotional developmental initiatives.
With 2500 awareness campaigns during 2016-17 for conservation and promote efficient use of water, it has planned 5500 such programmes in 2017-18 with mapping of water resources. Besides, it has helped financially for organisation of Farmers’ Club, formation and registration of Farmers’ Producers Organisations, Capacity Building and creating Marketing Avenues for rural artisans.
Among others Dr K.C. Panigrahi CGM, NABARD, P.K Das, GM, RBI, B.V.G. Reddy, CGM, SBI, Anil Kumar, GM, UCO Bank and other senior officials from the state were present.
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