NABARD''s Rs 50,000 crores development fund operational
By Nisha Das | 31 Mar 2004
National
Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)
has operationalised the Rs 50,000 crore `Lok Nayak Jai
Prakash Narayan Fund (LNJPF)' and sanctioned Rs 176
crore to nine states for infrastructure projects in
the
agriculture sector.
In the first meeting of LNJPF, which was announced by the Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in the interim budget 2004-05, Rs 176 crore has been sanctioned to nine state governments, NABARD officials said .
The meeting, held recently, sanctioned funds for Kerala, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Bihar, Tripura, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh, NABARD said.
The amount has been sanctioned for projects relating to minor irrigation, soil and water conservation, flood protection, cold storage among others, it said and added, the bank has made a projection of financing Rs 7,800 crore during 2004-05 for priority infrastructure projects through state governments.
Of the Rs 50,000 crore corpus of LNJPF, about Rs 30,000 crore would be funded for various infrastructure projects through state governments during the next three years.
The activities proposed to be covered include minor irrigation, micro/drip/sprinkler irrigation, rain-fed agriculture, integrated watershed development, reclamation of waterlogged areas, flood control and drainage, public sector cold storage facilities at exit points, rural haat and other marketing mechanisms and modern abattoirs, it added.
The fund would finance about Rs 18,000 crore for investments in agriculture and commercial infrastructure through banking system and has allocated Rs 2,000 crore for development measures and risk management mechanisms, NABARD said.
The
resources for the fund would be mobilised from banking
system and market borrowings, it said adding, banks
having a shortfall in their agriculture lending portfolio
would contribute resources at terms similar to those
of Rural Infrastructure Development Scheme (RIDF). LNJPF
has been formed to create mechanism for efficiently
aggregating resources from various sources of long-term
finance, facilitating resource flow from market and
channelising it for agriculture and rural infrastructure
The fund would finance about Rs 18,000 crores for investments
in agriculture and commercial infrastructure through
banking system and has allocated Rs 2,000 crores for
development measures and risk management mechanisms,
NABARD officials said
