Gazi Anowarul Hoque :
Farm technologies are reportedly being neglected due to improper distribution of agriculture loan in all sub-sectors by the commercial banks.
According to Bangladesh Bank (BB), there are different sub-sectors, including crops, fisheries, livestock, seed production, silo and marketing, and agriculture technology and machinery, under the agriculture loan scheme.
The central bank has already directed that the credit have to go for purchasing agri-machinery like tractor, power tiller, bari seeder (seed sow machine), automated seedling nursery machine, and wedding and harvesting machinery to reduce the production cost and crop damages.
But the commercial banks are neglecting the central bank’s direction which will ultimately hamper the country’s projected growth target by 2021.
On the other hand, Bangladesh requires 7 per cent growth of its GDP annually to reach the middle-income countries’ status by 2021.
Sources said, farm loan was disbursed at Tk 17,646 crore in 2015-16 fiscal year (FY). Of them, Tk 145.29 crore was distributed to Agri-technology, while TK 158.46 crore credited to the same sector in FY 2014-15. About 10 per cent decreased by one year.
The commercial banks have been fixing their loan target for agriculture sector at 2 per cent out of the total credit sanction annually, the BB said.
In that case, the agriculture sector has to provide 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent growths annually as the country’s land has been reducing rapidly due to rapid growth of population.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the country produces 3.47 crore tonnes of rice against the local demand of 3.41 crore tonnes.
In 2015-16, six state-owned banks, two specialised banks, 38 private commercial banks and nine foreign commercial banks, totally disbursed over Tk 17,646 core, which is more than 8 per cent of the target and 10 per cent more than previous year.
In current fiscal, the disbursement target of agri-loan is TK17,550 crore.
While talking on sub-sector wise agri-loan disbursements, BB Executive Director Subhankar Saha told The New Nation, “We’ve strengthened our monitoring and supervision, aiming to achieve the overall farm credit disbursement target by the end of this fiscal,”
Most of the private commercial banks have been disbursing their credits through agent banking which is being considered as a bar in providing the loan proportionately, he added.
A recent study conducted by ‘Uses and Impacts of Agri-loan in Bangladesh’ by the central bank said, around 73 per cent of the total disbursed agri-loan has been using in crop sector. Of them, 66.14 per cent in direct crop, 3.38 per cent for producing spices, 2.88 per cent for crop preservation and marketing. While only 3.52 per cent goes for introducing agri-technology and irrigation machinery,
In addition, out of the total disbursed Agri-loan, 7.12 per cent has been using for fisheries, 2.73 per cent for livestock and others while 12 per cent loan for disbursing with hidden information.
The study had been carried out in 33 districts, where 2,000 customers of 10 commercial banks answered as respondents.
