World Bank loan for Indian farmers
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The World Bank has approved financial packages to India with a US $ 600 million loan and credit designed to transform access to financial services for Indian farmers.
The Strengthening Rural Credit Cooperatives Project of the World Bank supports the Government of India's programme to reform and revitalise the country's rural Credit Cooperative Banks (CCBs). These include some 31 state cooperative banks, 367 district central cooperative banks and over 100,000 primary agricultural credit societies. The goal of the World Bank supported project is to transform Credit Cooperative Banks into efficient and commercially viable institutions responsive to the financial service needs of India's poorer farmers, including small and marginal farmers. Although financial reforms were undertaken in India during the 1990s, yet India's rural population still has limited access to finance from formal sources, relying instead on extortionate money lenders. The problem is particularly severe for small and marginal farmers, who are among the poorest of India's rural dwellers farming, respectively, less than one acre and between one and four acres of land. Better access to finance for India's rural poor is absolutely critical for higher rural growth, for reducing inequality, and ultimately, alleviating poverty. Twelve Indian states, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Harayana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have signed the Memoranda of Understanding with the Government of India and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to the reform programme. Source: i4d Read more |
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