Disbursement of farm credit grows by 24pc

Farm credit disbursements grew by nearly 24 per cent during the first four months of the current fiscal year (FY) 2013-14, as the central bank is continuously persuading the banks to increase lending to farmers.
"We've strengthened our monitoring and supervision aiming to ensure the quality of farm loans," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Wednesday.
He said the central bank also wants that credit facilities for each interested farmer are ensured across the country without any harassment.
The scheduled banks together disbursed Tk41.22 billion in the July-October period of the FY14 compared to Tk33.28 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
"We expect that the disbursement of agricultural loans will be expedited in the coming months because of enhancement of seasonal cropping activities," the central banker explained.
Of Tk41.22 billion, six state-owned banks disbursed Tk25.65 billion and the remaining Tk15.58 billion was disbursed by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs) during the period under review, the BB data showed.
The banks have achieved 28.25 per cent of their annual agricultural loan disbursement target, which has been fixed at Tk145.95 billion for the FY 14.
"We've taken different initiatives to achieve the farm loan disbursement target by the end of FY14 without considering any excuse of the banks," the BB official said.
As part of the initiative, the BB has already met with four private commercial banks separately to review their overall farm loan disbursement situation and asked them for taking necessary measures to achieve their targets.
The recovery of farm loans, however, rose to Tk46.19 billion in the first four months of FY14 from Tk39.56 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the BB officials.