Tamil Nadu: NABARD pegs State’s credit potential at Rs.8,34,078 Cr
NABARD’s State Focus Paper for 2024-25was released on 05 March 2024 by Thiru. Thangam Thennarasu, Hon’ble Minister for Finance & Human Resource Management, GoTN in the State Credit Seminar organized by NABARD at Hotel Ambassador Pallava, Chennai in the presence of Thiru. T Udhayachandran, IAS, Secretary – Finance, GoTN; Tmt. Uma Sankar, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India; Thiru R Shankar Narayan, Chief General Manager, NABARD; Tmt. S Srimathy, Executive Director, Indian Overseas Bank; Thiru.Shiv Bajrang Singh, Executive Director, Indian Bank; Senior Officials of Government Departments; Senior Executives of Banks, Financial Institutions, NBFC-mFIs and NABARD.
Thiru R Shankar Narayan, Chief General Manager, NABARD in his address said that the State Focus Paper 2024-25 estimates an exploitable credit potential of ₹8,34,078 crore for Priority Sector activities as defined by the Reserve Bank of India. The potential assessed for 2024-25 is an increase of 69% over the projections of ₹4,93,047crore made for 2023-24.
This estimate encompasses ₹3,74,991 crore for agriculture, ₹3,17,061 crore for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises and ₹1,42,027 crore for other priority sectors. The Annual Credit Plan target for Tamil Nadu for 2023-24 has been fixed at ₹7,00,420 crore, in consultation with the Government of Tamil Nadu. NABARD has projected the credit potential for 2024-25 aligning with the ACP target for 2023-24.
The projections outlined for these sectors serve as a guiding factor for financial institutions, empowering them to channelize credit effectively, enhancing ground-level credit flow and fostering agriculture term lending, as prescribed by the Reserve Bank of India under its Revised Priority Sector Guidelines.
Further, the document also highlights infrastructure gaps under various sectors, which need to be addressed by the State Government, on a priority basis, to achieve the potential.
Thiru Udayachandran, IAS, Principal Secretary, GOTN in his address highlighted the invisible resources of the State. He advised the Bankers to prepare their loaning strategy to tap the invisible resources to enable the State to achieve the balanced growth. He also indicated that TN Economy is known as “Credit Economy”.
Recently the Hon’ble Finance Minister of the State Government has presented the budget of Rs.3.50 lakh crore and expected banks to contribute to the growth of State through liberal sanction of credit, which may be double the annual budget. He complimented NABARD for the collaboration and partnership with the State Government in the development of Rural Infrastructure. He advised NABARD to allocate more funds to the State under RIDF. He welcomed NABARD’s effort in coputerisation of rural cooperative banks.
Hon’ble Finance Minister Thiru Thangam Thennarasu in his address while thanking NABARD for organizing State Credit Seminar appreciated efforts taken by DDMs of NABARD in preparing District wise Potential Linked Credit Plan for all the districts of Tamil Nadu and are aggregated into the State Level projections in a document called “State Focus Paper”, which was unveiled here.
The State Focus Paper is expected to act as an input for the credit and infrastructure planning by bankers and State Government to prioritize allocation of funds for development. NABARD through its State Focus Paper 2024-25 has methodically mapped the available exploitable credit potentials encompassing all Priority Sector activities of the State’s economy.
The State witnessed natural disasters such as the COVID pandemic and unprecedented rainfall and floods during 2023. Despite challenges, the State is poised to contribute a major share towards the goal of $ 5 trillon economy for India by 2026- 27. The State is set to achieve $1 trillion economy by 2030, as the State has been posting 11%-12% of compounded annual growth rate in the past 10 years.
Agriculture is the livelihood for around 45% of the rural population in Tamil Nadu. Any minor intervention in this sector creates a major impact in the economic development of the State. The Government of Tamil Nadu bestows its paramount importance to agriculture.
During the Seminar, various interventions of NABARD in Tamil Nadu were displayed and stalls were set up to display the products of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), Off Far Producers Organisation (OFPOs) and differently abled trainees of NABARD programmes were displayed.
