KARACHI, April 29: The commercial banks disbursed Rs15bn among the farmers during July-March 2002-03 against Rs11.7bn during the same period last year, showing an increase of 28.3 per cent.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in a statement issued here on Tuesday said that despite an increase of 12.4 per cent in the annual target for this fiscal year, the commercial banks had achieved 70.5 per cent of their agriculture credit disbursement targets by the end of March 2003.

The central bank said that the farm credit disbursement witnessed a rapid increase during this fiscal year as it grew by 113.6 per cent and 142.5 per cent when compared with the same period of 2001-02 and 2000-01 respectively.

According to SBP second quarterly report for 2002-03 of the total agriculture credit disbursed, 82.4 per cent was advanced for the purchase of seasonal inputs (working capital) while the remainder was for development, (purchase of tractors, installation of tubewell, development of cultivable land, etc.).

Finding agriculture lending attractive, commercial banks showed greater interest and promised to disburse Rs21.30bn farm credits during the current fiscal year against the target of Rs18.70bn.

These five commercial banks are: National Bank, Habib Bank, Muslim Commercial Bank, United Bank and Allied Bank.

The NBP has recently annouced that it will double its existing Rs8bn agriculture lending portfolio every year by expanding into development-oriented loans in addition to routine production loans.

This significant increase in commercial banks’ credit to the farmers is being attributed to the revamping of the farm loan schemes and other measures taken by the central bank.