Lending to farmers decreased by nearly 6.0 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal year (FY) 2014-15 compared to previous corresponding period, prompting the regulator to make a call for a greater care.
Officials said the central bank had already asked the banks for taking necessary measures to expedite both disbursement and recovery of the agriculture credits across the country.
Disbursement of farm loan came down to Tk 38.83 billion in the July-October period of the FY 15 from Tk 41.22 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
Of the disbursed amount, six state-owned banks disbursed Tk 21.50 billion and the remaining Tk 17.32 billion was handed out by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs).
"We expect that the disbursement of agriculture loan will increase in the coming months to meet the growing demand of farmers," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Sunday.
He also said the BB had already strengthened its monitoring and supervision to ensure the credit facilities for each interested farmer without any harassment.
All the scheduled banks have achieved nearly 25 per cent of their annual agricultural loan-disbursement target for FY 15. The total target is Tk 155.50 billion.
"We've already taken different initiatives to achieve the target by the end of this fiscal year through boosting disbursement of the agriculture loan," the central banker noted.
He also said the central bank will not allow any negligence of the commercial banks in this regard.
The recovery of farm loans, however, also came down to Tk 45 billion during the period under review, from Tk 46.19 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
Talking to the FE, a senior official of a leading state-owned commercial bank said the farm-credit disbursement has already started to rise for meeting growing demand for potato-cultivation credits in the country's different districts.
"We expect that such rising trend of the agriculture credit disbarment will continue in the coming months," he observed.
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