The Annual Meeting with the Chiefs of Priority Sector of Scheduled Commercial Banks (Public and Private Banks) was held on 12 September 2018 at NABARD, Head Office. The meeting was presided over by Dr. H K Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD and was graced by Shri H R Dave, DMD, NABARD, Dr A K Bhutani, Joint Secretary, MoA, GoI and Ms. Sonali Sengupta, CGM, FIDD, RBI. The meeting was attended by Chiefs of Priority Sector of 37 Commercial Banks, CGMs of concerned HO departments of NABARD and other senior officials.
Chairman in his keynote address flagged important issues relating to agricultural production not being in tune with the quantum of credit flowing to agriculture, need for proper MIS and reporting systems, precision farming, need for use of micro irrigation as going forward availability of water will be a crucial issue, extending credit to rural housing and simplification of loan application formats so that farmers feel comfortable.
Shri H.R. Dave in his inaugural address explained that the main objective of this annual meeting was to review the status of ground level credit flow to agriculture and share various developments with the commercial banks. He outlined the agenda indicating that the presentations will cover sharing of key takeaways of the NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS), EShakti-Digitisation of SHGs, Support from Financial Inclusion Fund, Mainstreaming of innovative models and e- negotiable Warehouse Receipt financing.
Dr. A K Bhutani, Joint secretary, MoA spoke on issues in financing crop loans through KCC, interest subvention, advantages of eNWR and also shared other initiatives and concerns of Government of India. Smt. Sonali Sengupta, CGM, RBI spoke on the revised priority sector guidelines and RBI’s concern on various issues.
Detailed presentations on the following seven themes were made:
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Review of Status of Credit flow to agriculture
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NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS) – Key takeaways
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Digitisation of SHGs – EShakti – Way forward
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Financial Inclusion – Support from Financial Inclusion Fund
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Model Policy on Green Financing – Climate Change Centre of BIRD, Lucknow
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Mainstreaming of innovative models
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NWR Financing and Interest Subvention on Crop Loans