Hyderabad: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has pegged the total credit projection for priority sector — money it is ready to provide to the state government — at Rs 2.8 lakh crore in 2024-25. This is 51.08 per cent higher than the Rs1,85,327 crore allotted in 2023-24.
Agriculture minister Tummala Nageswara Rao on Tuesday launched Nabard's ‘State Focus Paper 2024-25’ in the presence of M. Raghunandan Rao, secretary, agriculture, Debashish Mitra, State-Level Banking Committee convener, SBI; K. Rajendra Prasad, DGM, RBI, government officials, senior bankers and research scientists.
Nageswara Rao reiterated the Telangana state government’s commitment to work for the development of rural areas and highlighted the importance of timely credit in agricultural growth. He also sought the support of Nabard in promoting agri exports, dairy infrastructure, construction of rural godowns and marketing of rural produce.
Nageswara Rao emphasized the need for crop diversification through promotion of millet cultivation and value chain development.
A mobile rural haat supported by Nabard for marketing agri produce was flagged off during the event, apart from release of documentation on successful interventions by Nabard including phygital nobile agro support services and mobile sabzi cooler.
Suseela Chintala, CGM Nabard, Telangana state, expressed confidence that SFP 2024-25 would be of immense help to the state government for planning targeted interventions through budgetary allocations, to the bankers for channelising credit and for other stakeholders to plan their interventions in rural and agri sectors.
M. Raghunandan Rao, secretary, agriculture, pointed out the initiatives that were in the pipeline from the part of the government, in the areas that have been focused by Nabard, which included the fruit park at Koheda, strengthening of Rythu Vedikas and crop insurance.
He said that the state government would come up with guidelines for implementation of Rythu Bharosa to extend Rs15,000 per acre per year to farmers and Rs12,000 per acre per year to tenant farmers and agriculture labourers from Kharif 2024.
Raghunandan said that the government will also introduce technology-driven crop insurance scheme for the benefit of farmers.
