Mizoram Rides High On Loans

Aizawl, Oct 25 : Loans disbursed to state governments by NABARD crossed rupees 1, 00, 000 crore cumulatively and stood at Rs 1, 02, 844 crore as on September 30, 2011. These included loans disbursed to 28 states and union territory of Puducherry as well as to the NRRDA to support the rural roads component of Bharat Nirman.

Sources said in Mizoram, 178 projects have been sanctioned to the state Government involving RIDF loans of Rs 361.54 crores. Of these, 141 projects have been completed and NABARD has released Rs 200.79 crore under the various projects so far.

Maximum funds were utilized for rural roads and bridges (52 %), small hydel projects and rural drinking water supply (14 % each) and Drainage & flood protection (8 %), Minor Irrigation (6 %). RIDF was set up with NABARD by the Govt. of India in 1995-1996 with an initial corpus of Rs 2,000 crore.

The funds were sourced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from Scheduled Commercial Banks in proportion to the extent of their shortfall in agriculture lending. For the current year (under RIDF XVII), an amount of ` 2,000 crore has been earmarked specifically for creation of warehousing infrastructure in different states.

Some of the projects involving large financial support from NABARD in Mizoram are Tlawva Small Hydel Project in Champhai district, W. Phaileng - Marpara road and number of drinking water project including Rural Drinking Water Supply project at Durtlang.

A few special innovative projects sanctioned during 2010-2011 include Slaughter house and Meat marketing Network and Drainage-cum-Flood Control at Aizawl. Implementation of these sanctioned projects will create man days of employment, besides the long term, multiplier benefits to the economy of the States and provide essential social infrastructure like drinking water supply benefiting thousand of people.

Evaluation studies conducted elsewhere in the country have observed that NABARD has played a very proactive role in financing and management of infrastructure projects in rural areas. Further, RIDF supports to State Governments give a fillip to public investment in infrastructure in rural areas that makes positive impact on the otherwise declining rate of capital formation in infrastructure for agriculture development.

Acknowledging the need for investing massive financial resources in further developing the infrastructure in rural areas, NABARD has now designed a new financial product viz., Nabard Infrastructure Development Assistance (NIDA) for this sector outside RIDF as well.

 

Source: Newmai News Network