Farm loan disbursement declined by 7.88 per cent in the first month of the current financial year compared with that of the same month of the FY14 with no loan disbursement by 11 scheduled banks in the period. According to the latest Bangladesh Bank data, farm loan disbursement by all banks decreased to Tk 904.53 crore in July of the FY15 from that of Tk 981.95 crore in the corresponding period of the FY14.
The 11 banks which disbursed no farm loan in July are Bank Al-Falah, Citibank NA, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Habib Bank, National Bank of Pakistan, State Bank of India, The Farmers Bank, Modhumoti Bank, NRB Bank, NRB Commercial Bank and Prime Bank.
A BB official told New Age on Monday that majority number of the banks had not paid much attention to speed up the disbursement of the farm loans considering the first month of the financial year.
The BB set a higher farm loan disbursement target of Tk 15,550 crore for the FY15 from Tk 14,595 crore for the FY14 as the banks disbursed a robust amount of farm loan amounting to Tk 16,036.81 crore in the last financial year.
But the central bank will face a difficult situation to achieve the higher disbursement target of farm loan this
fiscal year if the banks do not pay attention in this regard.
The BB official said that central bank had earlier warned some banks which performed poorly in disbursing farm loans that it would take punitive action if they (the banks) fail to achieve their targets.
He said that the banks would have increased their farm loan disbursement easily as they were now enjoying enough liquidity due to sluggish business amid political uncertainty.
He, however, said defaulted loans in the agriculture sector increased by 58.63 per cent in the FY14 from that of the FY13 as the farmers frequently failed to get fair price of their products due to a supply chain disruption during political unrest in the period.
The defaulted loans in the farm sector increased to Tk 6,308.95 crore as of June 30, 2014 from Tk 3,977.08 crore as of June 30, 2013.
Against the backdrop, the banks have taken a cautious policy to disburse farm loan to avoid defaulting situation which put an adverse impact on the farm loan disbursement in July.
In July of the FY15, the state-owned commercial banks — Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali — and the two specialised banks — Bangladesh Krishi Bank and Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank— together disbursed Tk 330.38 crore in farm loans, which is 3.61 per cent of their annual loan disbursement target of Tk 9,140 crore.
The private and foreign commercial banks together disbursed Tk 5,74.15 crore in agricultural loans in the period, which is 8.96 per cent of their total annual loan disbursement target of Tk 6,410 crore, the BB data showed.
-With New Age input
