NABARD''s Rs 50,000 crores development fund operational

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has operationalised the Rs 50,000 crore `Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Fund (LNJPF)' and sanctioned Rs 176 crore to nine states for infrastructure projects in the
agriculture sector.

In the first meeting of LNJPF, which was announced by the Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in the interim budget 2004-05, Rs 176 crore has been sanctioned to nine state governments, NABARD officials said .

The meeting, held recently, sanctioned funds for Kerala, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Bihar, Tripura, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh, NABARD said.

The amount has been sanctioned for projects relating to minor irrigation, soil and water conservation, flood protection, cold storage among others, it said and added, the bank has made a projection of financing Rs 7,800 crore during 2004-05 for priority infrastructure projects through state governments.

Of the Rs 50,000 crore corpus of LNJPF, about Rs 30,000 crore would be funded for various infrastructure projects through state governments during the next three years.

The activities proposed to be covered include minor irrigation, micro/drip/sprinkler irrigation, rain-fed agriculture, integrated watershed development, reclamation of waterlogged areas, flood control and drainage, public sector cold storage facilities at exit points, rural haat and other marketing mechanisms and modern abattoirs, it added.

The fund would finance about Rs 18,000 crore for investments in agriculture and commercial infrastructure through banking system and has allocated Rs 2,000 crore for development measures and risk management mechanisms, NABARD said.

The resources for the fund would be mobilised from banking system and market borrowings, it said adding, banks having a shortfall in their agriculture lending portfolio would contribute resources at terms similar to those of Rural Infrastructure Development Scheme (RIDF). LNJPF has been formed to create mechanism for efficiently aggregating resources from various sources of long-term finance, facilitating resource flow from market and channelising it for agriculture and rural infrastructure The fund would finance about Rs 18,000 crores for investments in agriculture and commercial infrastructure through banking system and has allocated Rs 2,000 crores for development measures and risk management mechanisms, NABARD officials said