Bangladesh Bank raises farm loan disbursement target by 8.99pc

The disbursement target for the immediate past 2019-20 financial year (FY20) was Taka 24,124 crore, said a BB press release issued on Thursday.

According to the new policy, state owned commercial and specialized banks will disburse Taka 11,045 crore while private and foreign commercial banks Taka 15,247 crore.In FY20, banks disbursed Taka 22,749 crore which is around 94.30 percent of their annual target.

In the previous fiscal FY20, agricultural and rural credit was disbursed among 30,66,786 persons in total of which number of women borrowers is 15,14,367 who have received Taka 8,359.93 crore as credit.

In the previous year 23,54,888 small and marginal farmers have received around Taka 16,250 crore from different banks. Beside this Taka 21.21 crore was disbursed among 7,179 farmers of char, haor and less developed area of the country.

BB has published the annual Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy and Programme for FY21 for achieving the prime objectives of sustainable development goals (SDGs), including eradication of poverty, ensure safe and nutritious food, through overcoming the impact of COVID-19.

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: loan for quail and partridge rearing and include the related regulations, fish farming by bioflux method, providing loan for fattening of cows under contract farming and increasing credit limit in credit policy for crops.