Budget 2024: Govt likely to increase agricultural credit target to ₹22-25 lakh crore

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₹22-25 lakh crore for the next fiscal and ensure every eligible farmer has access to institutional credit, according to sources. The government's agri-credit target is ₹20 lakh crore for the current fiscal. Also Read | Budget 2024: How the Union Budget is prepared? A quick guide Currently, the government provides interest subvention of 2% on short-term agri-loans of up to ₹3 lakh for all financial institutions.

This means farmers are getting a farm loan of up to ₹3 lakh at a concessional rate of 7% per annum. An additional interest subvention of 3% per annum is also being provided to farmers who repay on time. Farmers can also avail long term loans but the interest rate is as per the market rate.

For the 2024-25 fiscal, there could be a sharp increase in the agri-credit target to ₹22-25 lakh crore, sources said. According to the sources, there is more focus on agri-credit and the government is implementing several campaigns to identify the left-out eligible farmers and bring them into the credit network. The agriculture ministry has also created a separate division on 'credit' in order to give a focused approach, the sources added.

Further, the sources mentioned that the credit disbursal for various agricultural and allied activities has been exceeding the target in the last 10 years. In the current fiscal, about 82% of the agri-credit target of ₹20 lakh crore has been achieved till December 2023. About ₹16.37 lakh crore credit has been disbursed by both private and public banks in the said period, the official data showed.