HP first to achieve financial inclusion

Shimla, Jun 16 (UNI) Despite credit to Himachal Pradesh's horticulture sector trebling in the last four years, its productivity has not improved proportionately, state Chief Secretary SS Parmar today said.

Presiding over a State-Level Bankers Committee meeting here, he and urged the bankers for better coordination with government agencies to achieve desired objectives.

Mr Parmar said there had been huge investments in the agriculture and horticulture sectors through various state and centrally sponsored programmes like the Horticulture Technology Mission and Commercialization of Horticulture.

The annual average growth rate for flow of credit to the agriculture sector since 2004-05 was 51.05 per cent and the banks needed to focus on financial education and credit counseling to ensure that the easy accessibility and availability of credit does not lead to unproductive indebtedness, he said.

He said the Credit Deposit Ratio (CDR) has recorded an appreciable increase during the last four years but some of the districts lacked behind.

The state has emerged as a favourite investment destination and there was a huge potential for micro enterprises along with the medium and large scale units, he said.

UCO Bank Executive Director VK Dhingra, in his welcome address, said, during financial year 2007-08, banks have put an target to disburse Rs 3,512 crore.

As per the annual credit plan prepared by the banks for 2007-08, agriculture sector has been allocated a sum of Rs 1021.82 crore, Rs 360.86 crore for small scale industry and Rs 1,571.31 crore for services sector, he said.

During 2006-07, a total sum of Rs 3,547.96 crore was disbursed in the state of which Rs 977.09 was disbursed for agriculture sector, Rs 396.65 crore for small scale industries and Rs 1,341.51 crore for services sector.

UNI