New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS): The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has registered a 25.2 per cent rise in its loans and advances in FY21.

In its annual report for FY21, G.R. Chintala, the Chairman of NABARD said that half of the total loans outstanding of Rs 6 lakh crore was for credit support of production activities at the grassroots and a third for infrastructure development.

The Rs 25,500 crore Special Liquidity Facility (SLF) and Rs 1,567 crore additional SLF given upfront to cooperative banks, regional rural banks, and micro-finance institutions enabled unhindered flow of credit to farmers for seasonal agricultural operations while the Long Term Rural Credit Fund helped enhance on-farm capital formation.

"I am glad to announce that NABARD's balance sheet size reached Rs 6.57 lakh crore as on 31 March 2021, most of which is on account of non-idle (earning) assets that, in turn, helped create private and public investments at the ground level. We achieved a record year-on-year growth of 24 per cent in our total assets and similar impressive growth in loan portfolio," he said.

The Chairman said that NABARD has been a major player in the infrastructure space with 7.1 lakh projects (including Bharat Nirman) sanctioned since inception of RIDF under agriculture, irrigation, connectivity, and social infrastructure categories.

"We designed a new line of credit to partake in the $5 trillion economy drive -- Rural Infrastructure Assistance to the State Governments (RIAS). The RIAS aims to create infrastructure to support livelihoods in Eastern India, which not only lagged behind in physical and social infrastructure, but also bore the brunt of post-pandemic reverse migration," he said.