Bhubaneswar: Vishal Dev, Principal Secretary Finance has observed that the state’s economy has seen a rebound in the year 2021-22 despite the second wave of Covid-19 hitting the state.
While taking stock of State Economy Mr.Dev found out that the real Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has grown at a rate of 10.1% as per advanced estimate which is much higher than the national growth rate of 8.8%.
Capital outlay to GSDP ratio has increased from 3.8% in 2019-20 to 4% in 2022-23, pointed out a senior official, adding that the Capital outlay has been in tandem with the developmental needs of the State.
About 63% of total outlay has been allocated for developmental sectors such as major and medium irrigation, flood control, transport infrastructure, etc.
Reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure is required to support the growth of the economy and well-being of the people, said he.
Credit is an important input for development of agriculture along with infrastructure in rural areas. It is heartening to note that the ground level credit flow for priority sector is showing a rising trend over the past 5 years.
The performance of all banks together was 93.06% of the target set in Annual Credit Plan for 2021-22, which was 88.39% in the previous year. Achievement against target under agricultural credit was 95%in 2021-22.
The achievement of Commercial Banks in Total Agricultural Credit was 102.77% in FY 2021-22 with respect to their allotted targets, whereas the achievement of Cooperative Banks and RRBs were 91.60%and 57.53% respectively.
Under Crop loan, the share of Cooperative banks was 102.26%. Commercial Banks achieved only 69.63%of the allotted crop loan target.
Accordingly State Government has urged the Commercial banks in the State to increase their portfolio of Crop Loans.
The Agri-term loan disbursement in 2021-22 was 37.95% of the total Agricultural credit in the year compared to 31.15% in 2020-21.
In Agri-term loan, the share of Commercial banks was 75% whereas the share of Cooperative Banks was only 6.1%. Co-operative banks thus need to increase credit disbursement under Agri-term loan. There is a need to deliberate and prepare strategy to enhance the credit flow to agriculture sector rapidly and proactively.
Banks need to evolve suitable framework for extending credit for long term development of the agriculture sector, said he