255-cr development loan

CHANDIGARH, Sept 24: The Haryana State Co-operative Land Development Bank will lend Rs 255 crore for development activities in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors during the current financial year. It has already disbursed loans worth Rs 70.71 crore till the end of August.

In a statement issued here today, State Cooperation Minister Rao Narbir Singh said the bank had entered into hi-tech areas of financing by implementing the scheme of floriculture. Under this innovative scheme, Rs 1.01 lakh per acre was being advanced for floriculture crops like gladioli, carnations, marigolds, roses and tube-roses. The repayment period was six years.

The bank, through its network of 84 primary cooperative agriculture and rural development banks spread at tehsil, sub-tehsil level, had advanced long-term loans worth Rs 1538.23 crore to about 7.42 lakh beneficiaries since the inception of Haryana as a separate state.

The minister said that under non-farm sector loan programme, loans upto Rs 10 lakh were being advanced to provide employment to the unemployed youth in the state. Recently, the bank had started providing loan assistance for all public goods, passenger transport vehicles and auto-rickshaws having gross vehicle weight upto 16.2 tonnes, he said.