Question : CROP LOAN

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND COMPANY AFFAIRS (SHRI ANANDRAO VITHOBA ADSUL):

(a) and (b) The details of the percentage of crop loan provided by co-operative, commercial and regional rural banks in the country during the year 2000-2001 are given below:

s.	Agency	Amount	Percentage

No.	(Rs.crore)	(Approx.)


1.	Co-operative Banks	16564	50%

2.	Commercial Banks	13480	40%

3.	Regional Rural Banks	3239	10%

Total	33283	100%

(c) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) have taken various steps for increasing the share of commercial/Regional Rural Banks in the flow of agriculture credit. Some of these are:

Adopting the Kisan Credit Card Scheme to facilitate easy flow of credit to farmers;

Depositing the shortfall in the agricultural credit percentage in Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) maintained by NABARD;

Monitoring the performance of banks in State and District Level Meetings and taking flow-up action for increasing their flow of credit for agriculture;

Widening the number of activities and increasing the ceilings for lending to be covered under agriculture to enable increase in agricultural lending;

Preparing Special Agricultural Credit Plan (SACP) by commercial banks on an annual basts;

Providing of refinance by NABARD to banks at concessional rate of interest;

Opening of specialized agriculture finance branches by commercial banks; Starting a scheme to finance agri-clinics and agri-business centers.