MUMBAI: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) on Saturday said it has sanctioned Rs 30,200 crore and disbursed Rs 16,500 crore for various rural infrastructure projects across the country under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) in the first 10 months of the current financial year.

 

The RIDF, which was set up in 1995, is a dedicated fund to create social assets in rural India. "In FY21, the sanctions to the RIDF stood at Rs 30,200 crore as against the corpus of Rs 30,000 crore. The disbursement for the current financial year as on January 31, 2021 stands at Rs 16,500 crore," Nabard chairman G R Chintala said in a statement.

 

Since the inception of the fund, Nabard has disbursed Rs 3.11 lakh crore for different rural infrastructure projects, it said.

 

Chintala said this fund has constituted around 10 per cent of gross capital formation in rural areas.

 

Over the years, the RIDF has become a dependable source of funding for states and union territories for building,

strengthening rural infrastructure in critical areas like agriculture and irrigation, rural connectivity and social sector, including drinking water, primary health and education.

It could be noted that in the Union Budget 2021-22, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced to enhance the allocation to the RIDF to Rs 40,000 crore from Rs 30,000 crore. She also increased the corpus of the Micro Irrigation Fund by Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore. Chintala noted that the increased allocations to both the funds will help push rural infrastructure projects across states.

 

He said the Union Budget has accelerated sustainable agriculture sector's growth by pegging an agriculture credit target of Rs 16.5 lakh crore.

 

The recapitalisation of Rs 2,000 crore to Nabard and that of Rs 1,200 crore to regional rural banks will help achieve the target of agriculture credit, he added.