Bhubaneswar, December 14: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) on Wednesday projected Odisha’s overall credit potential for the financial year 2023-24 at Rs 1,60,280 crore.
NABARD conducted the State Credit Seminar for 2023-24 here, in which the State Focus Paper for Odisha was released. The seminar was inaugurated by Finance Niranjan Pujari in the presence of Development Commissioner PK Jena, Finance Secretary Vishal Kumar Dev, RBI Regional Director HN Panda, SLBC Convenor Goutam Patra, controlling heads of banks, Lead District Managers (LDMs), and other dignitaries from banking and State Government departments.
Minister Pujari urged banks to enhance their credit ratio to priority sectors.
NABARD CGM Udayabhaskar said that NABARD has set the priority sector target for 2023-24 at 19% higher than that of 2022-23. He stressed upon the need for increasing the area under irrigation and expansion of Rabi crops.
“NABARD has been increasing its support for Odisha State under the rural infrastructure development, tribal development, watershed development and micro entrepreneurship development among SHG women and other developmental activities leading to growth in the rural livelihood,” said NABARD CGM Udayabhaskar.
A book “Pratidhvani” highlighting the successful interventions of NABARD in various districts was released on the occasion too. Further, FPO loan mela, targeting to credit link 100 FPOs in 100 days was launched through NABKISAN, a subsidiary of NABARD. Five FPOs were handed over the sanction letter of NABKISAN loan.
Participants were apprised about NABARD’s initiative of “Beyond Paddy”, a project on crop diversification in Odisha.
