Nearly 50% of AP credit plan for FY16 allotted to farm sector

Hyderabad: The state credit plan in Andhra Pradesh for 2015-16 has been pegged at Rs 1,25,748 crore, in which the share of agriculture is Rs 65,272 crore.

The plan, launched by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu at a meeting of State Level Bankers' Committee (SLBC) here today, allocated Rs 16,960 crore for MSMEs and Rs 14,688 crore for other priority sectors, an official release said.

The total credit for priority sector is Rs 96,920 crore and non-priority segment at Rs 28,828 crore. A report presented at the SLBC meet said there are no unbanked mandals (units below the districts) in the state, where total bank deposits outstanding at the end of March 2015 was Rs 1,93,753 crore and advances at Rs 2,15,797 crore, an increase of 17.25 per cent and 7.25 per cent respectively, over the previous year. The priority sector advances at the end of March 2015 stood Rs 1,51,482 crore.

Total agricultural advances outstanding are Rs 95,597, constituting 47.51 per cent of total credit against the regulatory norms of 18 per cent. The total credit outstanding under MSME sector is Rs 32,276 crore, under education loans is Rs 3,062 crore and housing loans is Rs 17,424 crore. During the meeting, the Chief Minister directed all banks in the state to adapt interoperability which allows business correspondents of one bank to offer payment services to other lenders for better efficiency and optimisation. Stating that the government has successfully implemented two phases under the debt redemption scheme (farm loan-waiver), Naidu sought banks' cooperation for the third phase of the roll-out. We've linked most of bank accounts to Aadhaar. This should be carried out immediately and efficiently. We have to relieve farmers from debt-burden and make farming profitable.

The government has decided to form six sub-committees, comprising bankers and officials, for agriculture, horticulture and others to give a boost to economic activity in the state. The other areas where sub-committees would be formed are livestock, fisheries, MSME and affordable housing.
 Naidu suggested the sub-committees should identify growth drivers in each sector and monitor how and why an entity (to which credit has been lent) is non-performing and give hand-holding until it begins showing results, the release added.