Chief Minister Siddaramaiah meets PM Modi, urges him to restore NABARD lending to Karnataka
The Hindu
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seeks Prime Minister Modi's intervention to restore agricultural credit limit and infrastructure funding for Karnataka.
As the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has severely cut the short-term agricultural credit limit to Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital on November 29, 2024, and sought his direction to the Union Finance Ministry to restore the credit limit to the State by NABARD in the current fiscal year (2024-25).
The Chief Minister placed six demands before Mr. Modi and sought additional funding to Karnataka for addressing growing needs of the infrastructure in Bengaluru and other cities.
In a memorandum to Mr. Modi, Mr. Siddaramaiah said NABARD has created serious alarm among the farmers of the State by reducing its lending by 58% in the year 2024-25. NABARD has reduced its lending from ₹5,600 crore during 2023-24 to ₹2,340 crore for the current year 2024-25.
The reduced lending “will seriously impact the cost of finance for farmers, unless the State steps in to provide additional interest subvention which will severely impact our finance,” the Chief Minister said. Earlier, Mr. Siddaramaiah met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the same issue and apprised her of the State’s concerns.
“I request you to look into this and direct the Finance Ministry to rectify this situation so that farmers in Karnataka continue to receive soft agricultural loans,” the Chief Minister said in the petition to the Prime Minister.
Mr. Siddaramaiah requested Mr. Modi to provide ₹5,300 crore for the Upper Bhadra Project which was promised by the Finance Minister in the Union Budget of 2023-24.
Noting a Cabinet note that has been moved to provide the assistance under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme, the chief minister said, “I would request you to give approval to this proposal at your earliest convenience, as the Upper Bhadra project provides irrigation to the parched farm-lands of central Karnataka”.
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