NABARD estimates Odisha's total credit requirement Rs 1,10,735 crore for 2021-22

The NABARD has estimatedOdisha's total credit requirement of Rs 1,10,735 crore for the year 2021-22 with greater emphasis on crop diversification, animal husbandry, and fishery sector apart from greater Thruston enhancing credit flow to self-help groups.

This was part of the state focus paper for Odisha, released by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari at the state credit seminar for 2021-22 here on Monday.

NABARD Chief General Manager C Udayabhaskar said that the credit projections for Odisha for 2021-22 is Rs 1,10,735crore which is based on the potential assessed under various sectors and sub-sectors in all the agro-climatic zones of the state.

He solicited the cooperation of the state government, banks, and other stakeholders towards achieving the credit growth required to realize the potential identified under the plan. He also highlighted the important business and developmental initiatives of NABARD in the state.

He said the projected credit flow to the priority sector for the year 2021-22 has been enhanced by 22.5 percent from the year 2020-21. The projection for credit to the agriculture sector was pegged at Rs 46,460.40 crore which is7.34 percent more than the projection of the year 2020-21.

Keeping in view high credit growth in the MSME sector with a potential to generate rapid employment in the post-covidperiods, the paper made a projection of 41,867.10 crores for credit to the MSME sector with a growth of 37.46 percent over the previous year.

Similarly, in order to improve the flow of credit to SHG, the projection for loans under the category has been kept at6,295.77 crore which will also increase the average loan forSHG.

The focus paper also said that there is a need to highlight the newly developed irrigated areas to have plans for crop diversification, water-saving mechanism, and special credit plans to augment the credit flow.

Allied sectors like commercial dairying, goatery, fisheries, and horticulture need to be developed in clusters to optimize the availability of various support services and better market linkage, it said, The focus paper also stressed on development of AgriIncubation center to promote start-ups greenfield areas. Skill development and entrepreneurship development to be taken up for building the solid foundation for the private capital formation, it said, adding that the SHG loans to be doubled from the present levels.

Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari congratulated the banking sector in advance towards achieving the priority sector lending target of Rs 1,00,000 crore for the financial year 2020-21. He emphasized upon increasing the Agri term loan finance in allied sector activities such as Animal Husbandry, Poultry, Fisheries leading to asset formation and diversification of the income basket of farmers.

The minister also advised RBI and all the bankers to increase their banking outreach in unbanked areas of the state in order to help the state ineffective implementation of various developmental programs and also increase the scope of digital banking and financial inclusion across Odisha.

Finance Secretary A K Meena said Odisha has been performing consistently well compared to the national level GDP. However, he pointed out that the share of the bank credit in the GSDP of the state is much below the contribution of credit to national level GDP.