Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked the NABARD to provide finance to the allied farming sector on the interest at par with agriculture to give further impetus to the much needed agriculture persification program in the state. He also demanded to immediately slash the rate of interest on the NABARDs refinance from 4.5% to 2.5% to boost the rural economy. Delivering his address on the 32nd foundation day of NABARD here at Shivalik Hotel, Mr. Badal said that NABARD had been earlier providing refinance at 2.5% which had been now increased to 4.5% and impressed upon the NABARD to immediately reduce it to 2.5% so that the farmers could be provided loans at cheaper rate, which would also make the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) financially viable and enable the state government in converting PACS into Multi-purpose Cooperative societies by adding farmer friendly services. He also pleaded for providing finance to allied sectors like dairy, piggery, bee-keeping, goatery on interest at par with agriculture in Punjab by NABARD. Likewise, Mr. Badal also urged the NABARD to immediately do away with the condition of capping of Rs.30 lakh for house loan and Rs.1 lakh for repair/renovation/enhancement. Mr. Badal also asked the NABARD to work out a scheme to arrest the growing trend of heavy migration of population from rural to urban area, by giving the rural economy a big boost. Appreciating NABARD for providing concessional funds under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund for upgrading rural infrastructure in the State, Mr. Badal revealed that an amount of Rs. 495 crore has been earmarked for the current fiscal and demanded the amount to be at least doubled to Rs. 1000 crore.
Showing concern over the 22% decline in the share of agriculture and allied sector in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the state despite the fact of rapid progress in agriculture sector, Mr. Badal called upon the NABARD to play a pro-active role to facilitate the developmental efforts of the state government. He said that the state government in its own humble way has laid special thrust on the persification of agriculture and was facilitating the farmers for adoption of latest techniques and technology in ushering an era of second green revolution. He also lauded the efforts of NABARD to issue Kisan Credit Cards and Rupay Kisan Credit Cards, a new farmer-friendly service to be launched soon for helping them to withdraw money like any other credit cards. The Chief Minister also said that the state government had already initiated computerisation of all the cooperative banks in the state to make them competitive with other banks and thus all the 842 branches of cooperative banks would function online by 15 August, 2013. On the occasion, Mr. Badal also inaugurated the evening branches of cooperative bank at Amritsar and Bathinda besides releasing a compendium ‘Vikas Jyoti’ highlighting various developmental and promotion initiatives taken in Punjab by NABARD. He also felicitated 21 partner agencies like commercial banks, regional rural banks, cooperative banks, PACS, PADBs, self help groups, joint liability groups, NGOs, etc for their commendable efforts at the grassroots in the development process of the state.The Chief Minister was accompanied by his principal secretary Mr. SK Sandhu. Prominent amongst others who were present in the function included chief managing director NABARD Mr. Naresh Gupta and general manager NABARD Punjab Mr. DD Mishra.