District Collector unveils potential-linked credit plan

Mahbubnagar: District Collector T K Sridevi has unveiled NABARD Potential Linked Credit Plan (PLP) projections for Mahbubnagar district for the year 2016-17.

Participating at the District Cooperative Committee (DCC) meeting on Thursday at Revenue Meeting hall, the Collector directed the officials to launch all government schemes and ensure that the funds are fully utilised before the the financial year came to an end.

As per the directives of government of India (GOI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), NABARD prepared “Potential-Linked Credit Plan” (PLP), a planning document that highlighted the credit requirements for various priority sectors as per RBI norms.

These district-level plans (PLPs) aggregated as State Plans are extensively used by the Government of India and the State governments. The PLP forms the base for Annual Credit Plan (ACP) for the district and also provides input to the district authorities for preparing their budgetary plans.

The total credit potential for 2016-17 under priority sector for the district is estimated at Rs. 8218 crore registering a growth rate of 30 per cent over the PLP projection for the year 2015-16 and 23 per cent over the ACP target for the year 2015-16. The crop loans have been projected at Rs. 4907.14 crore, term loans investment for agriculture and allied activities at Rs 1973 crore, and MSME sector Rs.765 crore she said.

Sridevi said, according to financial statistics, the government has a target of spending Rs 2,522 crores for this kharif period, but till date only Rs 1,886 crore have been spent. The banks are supposed to reach a target of Rs 639 crore for term loans, but they could give only Rs 313 crores by end of the kharif.

An amount of Rs 173 crore was earmarked for the agriculture and allied sectors and the bankers could reach a target of Rs 90 crore. “Except only a few banks, majority of banks have failed to reach the targets because of which development works have been hampered in the district. It is high time that bankers needed to come to the rescue of the people and extended flexible loans to farmers,” asserted the Collector.

According to the plan, the thrust areas for 2016-17 are formation, nurturing and financing of Producer Organisations of small and marginal farmers and financing “bhoomiheen kisan” (landless) in JLG mode. Financing of post harvest infrastructure, mini - processing units, Producer Organisations, financing against NWRs, area based schemes, etc. would all go a long way in supporting target beneficiaries, the small and marginal farmers and taking them forward in the value chain system.

The new projections have mainly focused on major constraints like low crop diversification, indiscriminate use of fertilisers and pesticides, low farm mechanization, inadequate capital formation, poor recovery in government sponsored programmes, availability of warehouse space (estimated storage gap of 1.87 lakh MT) and other marketing infrastructure etc, she added.

Special focus is also being laid on availability of inputs and minimum support price to farmers. As per the new projections banks have been guided to consider the land holding pattern and also the problem of fragmented holdings, and directed to promote JLGs and extend credit facility to tenant farmers/sharecroppers and marginal farmers. Technology innovation in crop production, recharge of ground water, scientific storage, supply chain management, tie-ups with milk cooperative societies and dairy loans, credit flow for sheep farming, establishment of storage facilities, loans for MSME, etc have been given priority in the plan projections for the year 2016-17, she said.