Commercial banks surpass target of agri credit in FY19, says RBI report

The RBI Annual Report for 2018-19 on Thursday showed that commercial banks overshot their target of agriculture credit for the financial year 2019-20 and lent a total of Rs 9,496 billion as farm loan. "During 2018-19, the government of India set the target of Rs 11,000 billion for agricultural credit. As on March 31, 2019, commercial banks achieved 119.9 per cent of their target whereas cooperative banks and regional rural banks (RRBs) achieved 93.26 per cent and 105.78 per cent, respectively. The target for 2019-20 is Rs 13,500 billion," the RBI annual report said quoting data from the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The report further noted that the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) has emerged as an innovative credit delivery mechanism to provide adequate and timely bank credit to farmers under a single window for their cultivation and other needs, including consumption, investment and insurance. 

The KCC scheme has now been extended to farmers involved in animal husbandry and fishery to enable them to meet their working capital requirements, it said.

It showed that the provisional outstanding crop loan amount in the financial year 2018-19 was Rs 4,136.70 billion against Rs 3,906.02 billion.

The report also said that the measures taken by the central bank for facilitating flow of credit to micro, small and medium enterprises and other steps taken by the government over the last few years have resulted in an increase in credit flow to sector.

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Going forward, the RBI would examined the various recommendations made by the Expert Committee on MSME headed by U.K. Sinha, it said.