National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) will raise up to Rs 3.9 trillion in current financial year (FY22) to support growth.

 

Nabard chairman, G R Chintala, said the development finance institution will borrow between Rs 3.72 and 3.90 trillion from the market in FY21-22 to expand its balance sheet to Rs 7.5 trillion level by March 2022.

 

The borrowings were at Rs 3.17 trillion in FY21, up from Rs 2.06 trillion in FY20. The fund raising would be done through a combination of debentures, government support, long-term bonds and short-term funding.

 

The balance sheet expanded by 24 per cent to Rs 6.57 trillion in the financial year ended March 2021 from Rs 5.53 trillion in FY20. According to provisional and unaudited results its income rose to Rs 34,700 crore in FY21 from Rs 32,692 crore. The profit after tax was up at about Rs 4,000 crore in FY21, up from Rs 3,859 crore in FY20.

There is a thrust on enhancing growth and value addition in the agriculture sector. The bank would also manage two credit funds – one for animal husbandry and second for supporting Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) in 2021-22, he said.

 

The loans and advances of the development bank has grown from Rs 4.81 trillion to Rs 6.03 trillion, a significant increase of 25 per cent in a year affected by the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.

Referring to refinance operations, Chintala said Nabard disbursed Rs 2.23 trillion to support agriculture and rural development activities during the pandemic. This works out to a significant growth of 25 per cent over the previous year.

Under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, NABARD disbursed Rs 16,800 crore to Cooperative Banks, Rs 6,700 crore to RRBs and Rs 2,000 crore to NBFC-MFIs through a Special Liquidity Facility (SLF).

 

Financial Institution also provided additional SLF of Rs 1,567 crore to NBFC-MFIs with asset size of less than Rs 500 crore to help the smaller players withstand the pandemic pressure.