From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Feb 21: NABARD has estimated Karnataka’s credit requirement for priority sectors for the year 2017-18 at Rs 179,160 crore, an increase of 24 % over the projection of Rs 144,694 crore for 2016-17.

The credit requirement of crop loans Rs 66377 crore, agricultural term loans Rs 25562 crore, agricultural infrastructure and ancillary Rs 10,428 crore, others Rs 76793 crore, according to the State focused paper of the NABARD.

The State Credit Seminar to deliberate upon the potential identified for various sectors in the State, keeping in view the theme of ‘Doubling the Farmers’ Income by 2022’, was organized by NABARD Karnataka Regional Office, Bengaluru, on Tuesday.

It was inaugurated by Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka.

Vijay Bhaskar, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner,  Arun Shrivastava, Managing Director & CEO, Syndicate Bank; Eugene E Karthak, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India; Farooque Shahab, Chief General Manager, State Bank of India were the special guests in the event.

The Seminar was attended by Senior Officials of State Government, Banks, Universities, Research institutions, NGOs and other agencies among others.

The Seminar evidenced the release of the State Focus paper 2017-18 for Karnataka which is an aggregation of the Potential Linked Credit Plans(PLPs) prepared by the District Development Managers of NABARD. It also portrays NABARD’s perspective on the development of the State.

The total projection for the Priority Sector has been estimated at Rs 1,79,160 crore for 2017-18, an increase of 23.82 % over the projections made for 2016-17. The projection for agriculture is Rs 1,02,367 crore which is 57 % of the total projection.

M I Ganagi, Chief General Manager, NABARD presented Nabard’s perceptions on the development of Karnataka,  as reflected in the State Focus Paper, while flagging the major issues and suggesting the way forward for the development of agriculture and rural sectors.

While indicating that the theme of the State Focus Paper was ‘Doubling of Farmers’ Income by 2022’, he urged upon all stakeholders to join hands in achieving the national goal.

The presentation focused on the need for enabling provisions for financing tenant farmers through revisions in land leasing/ownership norms, diversification of agriculture through promotion of integrated farming systems, support for climate smart agriculture, formation of Farmers collectives for reaping the benefits of scale through aggregation, among others.

While focusing on the Union Budget announcements pertaining to NABARD, he said the dedicated Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF) set up in NABARD with an initial corpus of Rs. 20,000 crore has been further enhanced to Rs. 40,000 crore for fast tracking the implementation of incomplete major and medium irrigation projects under AIBP and also two national projects. Five projects from Karnataka have been identified for funding under Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF).

In his Keynote address, Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Chief Secretary, appreciated the efforts of NABARD in bringing out the State Focus Paper and urged upon banks to translate the projections into actual credit for agriculture with the support of State Government departments.

He indicated that Karnataka was already implementing a large number of schemes and programmes to support agricultural development through credit plus approach and also assured that required infrastructural support would be provided on a bigger scale especially in the background of the ambitious goal of Doubling of Farmers’ Incomes by 2022.

Kuntia stressed on the need to harness technology and relationship banking for escalating growth and productivity of agriculture in the State.

The Seminar witnessed a Sectoral presentation on potential, issues and action points for some of the major sectors and concluded with an interactive Open House session in which Senior Officials of Line Departments, Banks and other agencies suggested concrete action points, the significant ones being awareness generation among farmers for integrated farming, need for support to farmers clubs by banks, focused financing of FPOs and agri value chain by banks.