NCDC to disburse about Rs 6000 crore during 2007-08 to co-ops

New Delhi, Oct 13 (UNI) The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) will disburse around Rs 6,000 crore during the current financial year, as against Rs 4,010 crore in 2006-07, for production, processing, marketing, storage and other needs of farmers and artisans through cooperative societies.

In the current financial year, till September 30, 2007, the Corporation had sanctioned Rs 1,280 crore for various schemes and disbursed Rs 1,081 crore during the period.

Highlighting the achievements of NCDC here today, Minister of State for Agriculture Kantilal Bhuria said the NCDC had sanctioned a record assistance of Rs 6,255 crore and disbursed highest ever assistance of Rs 4,010 crore during 2006-07, recording a 97 per cent increase over the previous year's sanctions, disbursements were higher by 74 per cent over the releases made during 2005-06.

The Corporation's profit during 2006-07 was Rs 86.56 crore and ratio of non-performing assets (NPA) came down from 0.68 per cent to 0.17 per cent during the year while a recovery rate of 100 per cent was achieved.

The Minister mentioned that till March 31, 2007, NCDC has disbursed a total assistance of Rs 15,095 crore which is estimated to have benefited around 4 crore farmers/artisans/consumer directly and indirectly.

The NCDC reduced its dependence on the Government for funds. Of the total lending made during 2006-07, only 0.5 per cent was from the Government and the balance 99.5 per cent constituted market borrowings and NCDC's own corpus.

He also informed that Rs 1831 crore, constituting about 46 per cent of the disbursements made during the year, were disbursed to the cooperatively least and under-developed States including North-Eastern States.

The Corporation has been lending through State Governments and direct funding had been a fraction of the total lending. The trend had been completely reversed during 2006-07 as 88 per cent of the total lending by NCDC was made directly to the societies.

The future strategies of the Corporation will include consolidation of existing infrastructure and units established by the cooperatives especially for value addition and processing of farmers' produce, strengthening of forward and backward linkages for procurement and marketing, upgradation and modernisation and rehabilitation of sick units, strengthening of monitoring system and creating awareness of NCDC schemes and programmes by organising workshops.

UNI