BHUBANESWAR: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has provided refinance support of Rs 8,367 crore to the State in 2015-16 against Rs 8,000 crore in the last fiscal.
The national bank extended support to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore to the State under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF-XXI) registering an increase of about 15 per cent over the previous year’s sanctions.
Similarly, disbursements under various tranches of RIDF reached an all-time high of Rs 2,264 crore, registering an increase of about 45 per cent over the previous year. The support has helped the State Government complete execution of many RIDF projects during the year. Last year, RIDF support was to the extent of Rs 2,652 crore.
One of major projects sanctioned during 2015-16 was the drinking water project in Nuapada district entailing an outlay of Rs 752 crore (RIDF loan of Rs 543 crore). On completion, this project will provide safe drinking water in fluoride-affected areas benefiting about 1.2 lakh families, said a senior Nabard officer.
Besides, one mega lift canal irrigation project with RIDF loan of Rs 766 crore on Upper Indravati Irrigation project in Kalahandi district and 19 mega lift irrigation projects with aggregate RIDF loan of Rs 497 crore were sanctioned for four backward districts during the last fiscal.
The cumulative RIDF sanctions and disbursements as on March 2016 amounted to Rs 14,995 crore and Rs 9,918 crore respectively.
The bank which started a separate warehouse infrastructure fund (WIF) in 2014-15 for supporting creation of storage facility has sanctioned Rs 1,077 crore to the State for construction of 3,725 rural godowns with a total capacity of 7.3 lakh tonnes.
In 2015-16, the bank had released Rs 160 crore to the State Government and the cumulative disbursement till March 2016 was Rs 184 crore.
Extending support to new areas of activities linked to agriculture, the bank had sanctioned Rs 900 crore to Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation for its food grain procurement operations during 2015-16. It further extended Rs 150 crore to Odisha State Cooperative Bank for credit support to the corporation under its direct lending window.