NABARD to start financial advisory services for farmers

Kolkata, Jul 18(UNI) NABARD will set up two funds with a corpus of Rs 1000 crore this fiscal and open a financial advisory unit for states where several farmers had committed suicide.

Speaking to mediapersons here today on the sidelines of the Banking Conclave, organised by FICCI, NABARD CMD Dr Y S P Thorat said ''We will set up two funds--Financial Inclusion Fund and Financial Inclusion technology fund, with corpus of Rs 500 crore each, for offering better services to the poor people.'' NABARD and the central and state governments would join hands to form this fund.

Financial Inclusion is process through which people at the bottom of the pyramid receive basic financial services like no-frill savings account and general purpose credit card.

Elaborating on the proposed Financial Advisory Services, Dr Thorat said this service would be introduced in Maharasthra, Kerala and Maharashtra where incidents of several farmers committed suicide last year.

The state government, NGOs and SHGs should join hands to make this service successful, he added.

''After offering counselling and advisory services to the farmers of Vidarbha last year, we decided to launch this service in the rural areas for the farmers in the three states,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Thorat said the Centre is taking steps to tackle yield gaps.

''There are large tracts of lands where yield of agricultural produces is very low. We need to bridge the yield gap and therefore work closely with state government and the Centre,'' he said.

''Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that this problem should be tackled immediately,'' he said.

UNI