DHAKA, July 25, 2018 (BSS) – Bangladesh Bank (BB) has raised the agriculture and rural loan disbursement target by 6.86 percent to Taka 21,800 crore for the current 2018-19 financial year (FY19).
Deputy Governor of the central bank SM Moniruzzaman announced the target today while rolling out the agriculture and rural credit policy for the FY19 at a meeting at the central bank’s headquarters in the capital city.
The disbursement target for the immediate past 2017-18 financial year (FY18) was Taka 20,400 crore.
According to the new policy, state owned commercial and specialized banks will disburse Taka 9,875 crore while private and foreign commercial banks Taka 11,925 crore.
The target will not be difficult to achieve for the banks, as they disbursed Taka 21,393.55 crore last fiscal exceeding their annual disbursement target (by five percent), said the deputy governor.
Moniruzzaman said BB has published the annual Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy and Programme for FY19 for achieving the prime objectives of sustainable development goals (SDGs), including eradication of poverty, ensure safe and nutritious food and maintain good health for the people of the country.
To ensure the food security of the people and to develop a sustainable agricultural credit system, some new concepts have been added to the current agricultural credit policy. These are: minimum 10 percent of agricultural credit disbursement target is required to disburse to the fisheries sector, agricultural credit for floating agriculture system, agricultural credit for the integrated farming system, agricultural credit for rearing turkey birds, agricultural credit for producing fish through pen system, increasing the credit limit per acre for the crop cultivation, if any private commercial bank cannot achieve it’s target in a financial year, it is required to deposit unachieved portion of the target amount or equivalent to three percent of the unachieved portion of the target, if a bank deposit 3 percent of the unachieved portion of the target and can disburse the unachieved portion fully or partly within next 2 years, the deposited amount will be refunded fully or proportionately; otherwise the deposited amount will not be refundable.
In the previous fiscal FY18, agricultural and rural credit was disbursed among 39,62,508 person in total of which number of women borrower is 15,76,137 who have received Taka 6,309.58 crore as credit.
In the previous year 30,73,153 small and marginal farmers have received around Taka 15,092 crore from different banks. Beside this Taka 30.47 crore was disbursed among 8,339 farmers of char, haor and less developed area of the country.