Shri Manoj Ahuja, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare today launched a new campaign for banks under the Agri Infra Fund titled BHARAT (Banks Heralding Accelerated Rural & Agriculture Transformation). This month-long campaign (from 15th July 2023 to 15th August 2023) with a target of Rs 7200 crore was launched via video conference attended by more than 100 bank executives which included MD/President, EDs of commercial banks in public and private sector, rural regional banks, small finance banks, NBFC and selected cooperative Banks. Shri Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary (AIF), addressing the meeting of bank executives and ministry officials, highlighted the progress made since the inception of this ambitious flagship programme. In his welcoming speech, he complimented the banks for their active involvement and support in promoting this scheme which has resulted in the creation of more than 31,850 agri infra projects in the country with ₹24750 crore as loan amount under AIF with an outlay of ₹42,000 crore.
Welcoming the support of the MoA&FW and the AIF’s Project Monitoring Unit, executives from participating banks made many suggestions to take the AIF’s program to new heights. Secretary, MoA&FW congratulated the top performing banks in different categories, namely State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Madhya Pradesh Gramin Bank, Madhyanchal Gramin Bank and Punjab Gramin Bank , for their commendable effort in helping to advance this scheme and appealed to all Banks to achieve the targets considering the vast potential of agri infra projects in our country. Banks were also advised to carry out an impact assessment of projects implemented under the scheme at ground level.
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