Andhra chief minister urges bankers to be liberal while granting crop loans

Andhra chief minister urges bankers to be liberal while granting crop loans

Naidu has requested that there should be no hassles in extending loans for the priority sectors.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday requested bankers to be liberal in granting crop loans to farmers, particularly tenant farmers, besides extending financial assistance to the beneficiaries of various direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes.

Addressing the state-level bankers committee (SLBC) meeting for the first time after taking charge as chief minister, Naidu requested that there should be no hassles in extending loans for the priority sectors.

The SLBC approved an annual credit plan for the state with ₹5.4 lakh crore for the year 2024-25. (Was this announced today as well?) Of this, ₹3.75 lakh crore will be allocated to priority sectors and ₹1.65 lakh crores have been allocated to other sectors. For the agriculture sector, ₹2.64 lakh crore has been set as the credit target.

Naidu said the agriculture sector would be getting 14% more credit in 2014 compared to the previous year. Dairy, poultry, fisheries, mechanization in cultivation and infrastructure will be given priority with an allocation of ₹32,600 crore.

For the MSME sector, the SLBC approved a credit outlay of ₹87,000 crore, which is 26% more than the previous year’s ₹69,000 crore. For the housing programme, an amount of ₹11,500 crore was allocated as loans and for non-conventional energy, the lending would be to the extent of ₹8,000 crore.

Naidu announced that a sub-committee with various bankers would be constituted to inculcate discipline in spending in various sectors. He called for reducing the cost of cultivation by adopting modern techniques and asked the bankers to focus on encouraging wealth-generating programmes. He also suggested that the banks should encourage digital payments to the maximum extent.

State finance minister Payyavula Keshav, agriculture Minister Achchennaidu, Union Bank executive director Sanjay Rudra, SLBC convener CVN Bhaskar Rao, bank officials and officials from various departments participated in the meeting (where was the SLBC meeting?)