July-Oct agri loan up 58pc

Eight nationalised commercial and specialised banks disbursed Tk 1154.78 crore during July-October period, 58 percent more than last fiscal year's same period, in an apparent move to inject fresh funds into the rural economy after the devastating floods.

In the first four months of last year, agriculture loan disbursement was Tk 729.53 crore.

The government on August 15 this year formed an 11-member committee to monitor agri-loan disbursement with Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank Nazrul Huda as convenor.

The committee yesterday in a meeting expressed satisfaction with the overall disbursement procedure. As there are allegations of irregularities in disbursing agri-loan according to some media reports recently, yesterday's meeting decided to investigate the allegations and submit a report in this regard.

The government has set a target to disburse Tk 5537.91 crore for this fiscal year through the commercial and specialised banks. In the first four months during this fiscal year Sonali Bank disbursed Tk 78.12 crore against the annual target of Tk 700 crore, Janata Bank Tk 102.79 crore against the yearly target of Tk 475 crore and Agrani Bank Tk 137.81 crore against the annual target of Tk 500 crore.

Rupali Bank Ltd disbursed Tk 5.4 crore against the annual target of Tk 30 crore, Bangladesh Krishi Bank Tk 548.49 crore against the target of Tk 2400 crore, Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank Tk 181 crore against the target of Tk 775 crore, Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB) Tk 101 crore against the target of Tk 646.41 crore and Bangladesh Samabaya Bank Limited disbursed Tk 0.25 crore against the annual target of Tk 11.50 crore.

Loans have been disbursed for crop, irrigation, agriculture equipment, live stock, fisheries, grain storage and marketing, poverty alleviation programmes and others.

On the other hand, loan recovery during the same period this fiscal year has slowed down by around 29.5 percent as the government provided a one year moratorium so as to give rural people sufficient time to recover from losses caused by devastating deluge this year.

Agri-loan recovery was Tk 850 crore during July-October period last year, which came down at Tk 600 crore during the same period this fiscal year.

With the poor recovery trend, total overdue loan in the agriculture sector amounted to Tk 6,535.19 crore, which is more than 50 percent of the total outstanding loan of Tk 12,888 crore.