BIZ-OD-NABARD

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) Saturday projected

an overall credit potential for Odisha under priority sector at Rs 75,612 crore for 2019-20.

This was part of the State Focus Paper for Odisha, released at the State Credit Seminar for 2019-20.

The seminar was inaugurated by Chief secretary A P Padhi and attended by secretaries of different departments,

RBI, SBI, Odisha State Cooperative Bank, Chairmen of RRBs, controlling Heads of Banks and other dignitaries from banking

and state government. A Chandrasekhar, Chief General Manager, NABARD

explained the process of preparation of state level credit potential, the state credit projection forming the basis of

Annual Credit Plan. The document assesses infrastructure available,

planned, gaps, and is used as a referral document for planning infrastructure and credit dispensation by all stakeholders.

"The credit projections for Odisha for 2019-20 is at Rs 75,612 crore that is based on the potential assessed under

various sectors and sub sectors in all the agro climatic zones of the state," Chandrasekhar said and solicited cooperation of

state government, banks and other stakeholders towards achieving the potential.

He also highlighted the important business and developmental initiatives of NABARD in the state.

Padhi emphasized on increasing the Agriculture term loan finance in other allied sector activities such as animal

husbandry, poultry and fisheries leading to asset formation and diversification of the income basket of farmers.

He also advised RBI and all the bankers to increase their banking outreach in unbanked areas of the state in order

to help the state government in effective implementation of various developmental programmes and also increase the scope

of digital banking and financial inclusion across the state.

Odisha's Agriculture Secretary Saurabh Garg highlighted the importance of agriculture and allied sector

potential in overall credit potential of the state, as two-third of state's population is dependent on agri and

allied activities.