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Farmers Rejoice as NABARD disburses ₹20.5-Crore COVID-19 liquidity to coop banks, RRBs

KOLKATA: On Monday, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) announced the disbursal of ₹20,500 Crores worth of special liquidity facility, to cooperative banks and regional rural banks (RRBs). This disbursal is part of the ₹25,000 Crore, provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to NABARD, for refinancing regional rural banks (RRBs), cooperative banks and micro finance institutions (MFIs).

Of the ₹20,500 Crore disbursed so far, NABARD has extended ₹15,200 Crore to Cooperative Banks and the balance of ₹5,300 Crore to RRBs, from the total of ₹23,000 Crore, allocated for them, its chief general manager (refinance department) Jiji Mammen said. NABARD has also disbursed ₹1,550 Crore out of the allocated ₹2,000 Crore, to MFIs under RBI’s refinance facility, he added.

He said that the disbursal was made with a view to augment the resources of the aforementioned banks to enable them to on-lend to farmers who are taking up pre-monsoon and Kharif (summer sown crop) 2020 operations. “We have already disbursed ₹20,500 Crore to cooperative banks and RRBs for on-lending to farmers starting May. We plan to disburse the balance amount in the next two weeks,” Mammen added. NABARD is a development financial institution, promoting sustainable and equitable agriculture and rural development.

In her televised address, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had mentioned last week that NABARD would extend additional refinance support of 30,000 Crore for crop loan requirement of Rural Co-operative Banks and RRBs, under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan economic stimulus, worth ₹20 Lakh Crore.

This front-loaded refinance facility to 33 State Co-operative banks, 351 District Co-operative Banks, and 43 RRBs will be available on tap, based on their lending capabilities. This fund is also against the ₹5,000 Crore, lent during the first quarter of 2019 and over and above the 90,000 crore to be provided by NABARD through the normal refinance route during this year, said FM Sitharaman.

NABARD further said that the banks have also initiated a programme of saturation of Kisan Credit Cards and about 12 lakh new KCC cards have been issued by cooperative banks and RRBs during the last two months. A total of 4.2 crore KCCs have been issued by cooperative banks and RRBs as on March 31, 2020.

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