Hyderabad: Finance minister P Chidambaram has said the government was confident of surpassing the targets fixed for credit disbursal to the agriculture sector.

Addressing a meet organised by Andhra Bank here on Monday, Chidambaram said the government was committed to enhancing rural credit to the farming community, besides enabling women, senior citizens and students to get easier access to credit and insurance linked credit and deposit products.

Chidambaram said agricultural credit was expected to exceed the target of Rs1,05,000 crore set by the Government for 2004-05 compared to an agricultural credit of Rs80,000 crore during the last fiscal. In Andhra Pradesh alone, banks have advanced Rs7,010 crore as agricultural credit so far this year and the targets will exceed this.

According to the minister, of the 10 crore farmer-families in the country currently, only four crore had access to formal credit from banks or co-operative societies, while the rest depended on local moneylenders. The government has embarked upon an ambitious programme to bring all farmers of the country under the formal credit system and relieve them from the clutches of moneylenders.

"Each year, we plan to add 50 lakh farmers to the formal credit system. The idea is to meet the needs of all farmers through the system in the next few years," Chidambaram said.

On the targets for self-help groups (SHGs), Chidambaram said groups run by women would get top priority. The government has, so far, provided loans to 10.8 lakh SHGs and proposes to help another 1.8 lakh SHGs this year. The women SHGs had a 98 per cent repayment record, he added.

The minister said the government had directed all banks to advance educational loans to students to do professional courses, without insisting on collateral or guarantee.

The Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, brought to the notice of the union finance minister of the state government''s recently launched housing scheme for the urban poor — the Rajiv Gruha Kalpa. Stating that the government planned to implement the scheme initially in Hyderabad and the Rangareddy districts. He added that the idea was to cover one lakh beneficiaries.

Reddy said the government planned to implement the scheme in 110 municipalities across the state over a period, covering at least 5,000 beneficiaries in each municipality. He urged the finance minister to provide assistance to the scheme.

Responding to this plea, Chidambaram suggested that the state government send in the details of the project and the assistance required for the consideration of the union government.