Agri Banking
Set to launch Baroda Kisan Agri Digital platform to cater to all the major
needs of large farmers:T
he Indian economy recorded a
slower pace of growth in the last
financial year, primarily on account
of a noticeable slowdown in the agriculture
sector. The area sown under both kharif and
rabi declined due to spatially distributed and
below normal rainfall in 2018-19. However,
these developments did not prevent Bank
of Baroda from offering its assistance to
the small and large farmers. It has a target-
oriented approach in this in the last FY.VARIOUS AGRI PRODUCTS
The bank has a network of 1845 branches
in rural and 1546 branches in semi-urban
areas, which are oriented towards priority
sector and agriculture lending. During FY
2019, the bank opened 22 new rural and
semi-urban branches. It has moved to a
more diversified rural lending strategy
by focusing on new products across rural
customer segments like farm mechanization,
horticulture loans, warehouse receipt
financing, food and adopting a community-
based lending model for the small farmers
and communities.
B.R. Patel, general manager and chief,
co-ordination for agriculture and financial
inclusion, at the bank, says farmers with
landholding of above 2 hectares are termed
as large farmers by the bank and every
scheme of the bank has different features
based on the product. “For example,” says he,
“Kisan Credit Cards are provided to farmers
as per the scale of finance for cultivation
of short-term and long-term crops. Forprocessing of agriculture produce we have
schemes under food and agro processing.”
During FY 2019, the bank issued
229,000 KCCs. Baroda Kisan RuPay Card,
an ATM-enabled smartcard, was issued to
1.346 million farmers. To facilitate credit
linkages of Farmer Producer Organizations
(FPOs), the bank tied up with Small
Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC)
for providing credit guarantee for collateral
free loans and also as a preferred bank for
Maharashtra.AGRI TARGETS ACHIEVED
The bank’s agriculture advances grew by14.2% yoy to `566.23 billion as on 31 March- The bank achieved all mandatory
targets under agriculture, priority sector,
small and marginal farmers, micro
enterprises, and loans to non-corporate
farmers during FY 2019 and earned a net
commission of330 million by selling Priority Sector Lending Certificates (PSLC) worth77 billion.
Says Patel: “We have served 30,
accounts of large farmers in 2018-19. The
total amount of credit extended to them is
11.28 billion. There were 27,163 accounts of large farmers, with lending amount being8.87 billion a year ago.”
The bank also covered 8018 choupals
with participation of 238,974 farmers
through 1621 kisan melas, 339 health
camps (soil / animal / farmer), 4884 farmer
meetings and 310 financial literacy camps
in FY 2019.
KISAN DIGITAL PLATFORM
The bank has developed various IT-based
products for all its customers including
Baroda Connect (internet banking), M
Connect (mobile banking). “We have
embarked on an ambitious project ‘Baroda
Kisan Agri Digital’ platform, which will
cater to all the major needs of the farmers
including large farmers. Through this
platform, the farmers will be provided with
vital information i.e. weather information,
crop health, soil moisture, pest infection
information, mandi prices, crop specific
advisory, input buying (like seeds,
fertilizers, pesticides), equipment renting,
etc,” says Patel.DEGROWTH IN NET NPA
The gross NPAs of large farmers increased to
`933.5 million in 2018-19, recording a yoy
growth of 7.26%. Business correspondents
are incentivized for collections in crop
loans. Patel mentions the net NPAs of
large farmers came down to `431.4 million
in 2018-19, recording a yoy degrowth of
11.89%.
[email protected]B.R. Patel explains how BoB
provides crop specific advisory
to farmers using digital platformBoB achieves `500 bn agri advances
% share in Gross Domestic Credit in Mar’
Agriculture
14%Retail
22%MSME
14%Corporate
47%Others
3%