Maharashtra banks see increasing credit disbursement to agricultural sector

Banks in Maharashtra have seen good lending to the agricultural sector this year after 3 years of below-average lending. Banks saw 66 percent of their target lending for the current financial year by the end of June, which is the highest in the last 3 fiscals. In the priority sector, lending to the agricultural sector (both in the short term and long term) is included. The SLBC minutes of the meeting which took place earlier this month showed that by the end of June 2022, banks - which received a target of lending Rs 46,449 crore - managed to lend an amount of Rs 30,465 crore. As per the minutes, this was the highest in the last 3 financial years. Financial institutions had reported 53 and 59 percent lending of their targets respectively in the past 2 years. Banks and financial institutions are provided targets for lending to the priority sectors with the State Level Bankers Conference (SLBC), the apex body of financial institutions regularly holding meetings for overseeing the lending. Financial institutions are given a target at the beginning of the year under the Annual Credit Plan (ACP). According to The Indian Express, analysis of the data reveals that scheduled commercial banks (SCB) have shown a healthy hike in their lending. For the current fiscal, the SCBs achieved 53 percent of their target which was 41 percent for fiscal 2021 and 38 percent for fiscal 2020. However, district central cooperative banks have actually shown a decrease in their lending. These banks were able to lend 88 percent of their target by the end of June 2022, which was lower than the 92 and 90 percent outlays by the end of June 2021 and June 2020 respectively. Cooperative banks have always outperformed the SCBs when it comes to credit lending, thus this dip in disbursement implies systematic problems in the cooperative credit structure. Good monsoons and ample rains have helped farmers to go for credit from the banks. Commodity prices have been robust which has been beneficial to many farmers in repaying their crop loans. The decision of the state government to give crop loans at zero percent interest rate to farmers with a ceiling of Rs 3 lakhs has veered farmers towards the banks. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.