BB strengthens monitoring on disbursement of farm loan
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
FE Report
The central bank has strengthened its monitoring on disbursement of farm loan through introduction of new reporting system aiming to ensure credit to the real farmers across the country.
Under the new system, the banks will have to report on disbursement of agricultural loan with prescribed forms mentioning landphone and mobile telephone numbers of branches to the central bank from this month.
"The report must be submitted to the concerned department of the central bank within 15 days of the next month," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Monday.
He also said the banks will report to the central bank separately if they use non-government organisations (NGO) linkage for disbursement of the farm credit.
"At least three NGOs including BRAC are now involved in disbursement of agri-credit across the country," another BB official said, adding the central bank had allowed the banks to use NGO linkage for disbursement of farm loan in rural areas particularly remote ones in 2008.
The central bank has issued a circular in this connection recently and asked the commercial banks to follow new reporting system properly for ensuring accountability and transparency of the agri-credit disbursement.
Meanwhile, the disbursement of farm loan grew around 60 per cent to Tk 6.488 billion in July last compared with Tk 4.057 billion of the corresponding period of the previous year, according to the central bank statistics.
The loans have been given to different agro-based sub-sectors like crops, irrigation equipment, livestock, marketing of agricultural products, fisheries and poverty alleviation.
On July 14 last, the central bank of Bangladesh announced an agriculture credit policy with a disbursement target of Tk 115.12 billion for this fiscal, marking 22.74 per cent growth over that of the previous fiscal.
Of the total target, Tk 84.53 billion will be disbursed by eight state-owned commercial banks and financial institutions during the fiscal 2009-2010 (FY10).
Besides, 29 private commercial banks (PCBs) will provide Tk 26.00 billion while 10 foreign commercial banks will disburse Tk 4.50 billion to the farmers, according to the announcement.
The central bank has strengthened its monitoring on disbursement of farm loan through introduction of new reporting system aiming to ensure credit to the real farmers across the country.
Under the new system, the banks will have to report on disbursement of agricultural loan with prescribed forms mentioning landphone and mobile telephone numbers of branches to the central bank from this month.
"The report must be submitted to the concerned department of the central bank within 15 days of the next month," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Monday.
He also said the banks will report to the central bank separately if they use non-government organisations (NGO) linkage for disbursement of the farm credit.
"At least three NGOs including BRAC are now involved in disbursement of agri-credit across the country," another BB official said, adding the central bank had allowed the banks to use NGO linkage for disbursement of farm loan in rural areas particularly remote ones in 2008.
The central bank has issued a circular in this connection recently and asked the commercial banks to follow new reporting system properly for ensuring accountability and transparency of the agri-credit disbursement.
Meanwhile, the disbursement of farm loan grew around 60 per cent to Tk 6.488 billion in July last compared with Tk 4.057 billion of the corresponding period of the previous year, according to the central bank statistics.
The loans have been given to different agro-based sub-sectors like crops, irrigation equipment, livestock, marketing of agricultural products, fisheries and poverty alleviation.
On July 14 last, the central bank of Bangladesh announced an agriculture credit policy with a disbursement target of Tk 115.12 billion for this fiscal, marking 22.74 per cent growth over that of the previous fiscal.
Of the total target, Tk 84.53 billion will be disbursed by eight state-owned commercial banks and financial institutions during the fiscal 2009-2010 (FY10).
Besides, 29 private commercial banks (PCBs) will provide Tk 26.00 billion while 10 foreign commercial banks will disburse Tk 4.50 billion to the farmers, according to the announcement.