With two months in hand, 94% of the second phase loans of Tk3000 for the agriculture industry has been distributed.
The loans were meant to help with the financial crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dhaka TribuneAccording to Bangladesh Bank's latest data, Tk2830.61 crore to 188,966 farmers from this package have already been distributedthrough different banks till July 31 this year.
On September 14 2021, the central bank formed a new refinancing fund for the agricultural sector to deal with the financial crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The fund was named “Agriculture Sector Stimulus Re-financing Scheme (second phase).”
However, this fund of Tk3000 crores still has Tk169.38 crore left. Farmers will get loans from this package till September 30, 2022.
After analyzing the data, it was revealed that Bangladesh Krishi Bank has distributed the most loans under the package. The specialized bank has distributed loans worth Tk1,250 crore to 1,00,143 customers.
It is followed by the private sector Islami Bank Bangladesh. They distributed Tk403 crore to 12,901 customers.
Apart from this, Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank, Sonali Bank and Agrani Bank were able to disburse Tk314 crore, Tk174 crore and Tk89 crore respectively.
Under this fund, the interest of the loan is highest at 4% for the farmers while banks will be charged 1% by Bangladesh Bank to receive the loan.
The banks will have to repay the loan to Bangladesh Bank within 18 months with a 6-month grace period while a customer will get 12 months to repay the loan.
The tenure of the fund was initially till June 2022. Later, the loan disbursement period was extended by three months till September 30 of this year.
Under this fund, any affected farmer can avail of a loan up to over 20% extra from the existing sanction limit and the highest amount of loan will be Tk10 crore, which would be provided by a bank having an agreement with the Bangladesh Bank for disbursing this credit under the agriculture and rural credit policy.
However, a farmer from the grass-root level can avail loan of up to Tk200,000 without any collateral. But this loan will not be allowed to be used for adjustment of the existing loan repayment.
In a circular, the central bank also said that interested banks, which want to distribute loans under the scheme, must have an agreement with the Bangladesh Bank while the central bank can re-fix the amount for the banks by making a time-to-time review of their capacity.
