Chennai: Apex development financial institution NABARD and State Bank of India have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for formation and credit linkage of 13,00 joint liability groups (JLGs) across Tamilnadu.

The groups will be purveying credit in the rural areas that would benefit around 13,000 small/marginal and landless farmers to the tune of around Rs 650 lakh.

 

Chief General Manager of NABARD (Tamilnadu Regional Office), Padma Raghunathan and CGM (Chennai Local Head Office), SBI, Vinay M Tonse, signed the MoU.

 

A release said NABARD has been working towards bringing the excluded population into the formal banking system through Self Help Group \96 Bank Linkage Programme, promotion of JLGs and other similar initiatives. The scheme of extending bank loans through JLGs has been in vogue for more than a decade, it added.

 

The main objective of formation and financing of JLGs is to augment flow of credit to landless farmers cultivating land as tenant farmers, oral lessees, share croppers and small/marginal farmers as well as poor individuals for taking up farm and non-farm activities. 4.12 lakh JLGs have been credit linked with loan assistance of Rs 7,056.82 crore in Tamilnadu as on 31 March 2018, the release added.