Nabard sees 82% rise in loans to Andhra Pradesh

VIJAYAWADA: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) said on Sunday that there had been an 82% increase in its loan disbursals to various schemes of the Andhra Pradesh government in 2019-20.
“During the year loans disbursed by the Andhra Pradesh regional office to the government of Andhra Pradesh and various state government-owned corporations reached an all-time high of Rs 6,060 crore, from the Rs 3,331 crore in the previous year, a growth of 82%,” S.Selvaraj, Nabard’s chief general manager, said in a press release said.
Nabard had released Rs 1,850 crore as the central government’s share for the Polavaram irrigation project.
Nabard sanctioned Rs 515 crore to the government’s ‘Naadu Nedu’ and ‘Mana Badi’ schemes. The loan was sanctioned to provide additional infrastructure at 615 government schools.
Nabard also sanctioned Rs 534 crore for the construction of 4 rural health centres and the upgradation and strengthening of the existing 43 health centres. It also sanctioned Rs 150 crore to overhaul the testing infrastructure in the state with the construction of 158 agri-labs, 4 regional coding centres and 46 aqua-labs.
The release said that under its Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, Nabard had a loan of Rs 1,931 crore to the Chintalapudi lift irrigation project in West Godavari and Krishna district, including a loan of Rs 819 crore to the AP Water Resources Development Corp to set up a drinking water scheme.
Nabard had also sanctioned a working capital loan of Rs 4,030 crore the AP Civil Supplies Corp for its paddy procurement operations.
The release said that Rs 11.40 crore was released to Andhra Pradesh State Warehousing Corp (APSWC) for grounding three warehouse projects. Cumulatively, NABARD has released Rs 99 crore to APSWC for the construction of 19 new warehouses in the state.
“Nabard also supported AP Skill Development Corporation for conduct of skill training programmes for rural youth across the State,” the release said.
It said that to supplement the efforts of “per drop more crop” component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, Nabard had sanctioned Rs 616 crore under Micro Irrigation Fund (MIF) and the funds will be released during the year 2020-21.