Agricultural loan disbursement in the first four months of the current fiscal year (FY) further declined by about Tk 6.0 billion, compared with the same period the year before, Bangladesh Bank (BB) said.

According to the BB data, state-owned commercial banks (SCBs), state-owned specialised banks, private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs) together have disbursed Tk 30.10 billion up to October of current FY, which was 36.08 billion a year ago.

Of the disbursed amount, SCBs and SSBs have disbursed Tk 19.79 billion against Tk 27.40 billion and PCBs and FCBs together disbursed Tk 10.31 billion against Tk 8.69 billion during the corresponding period of last FY.

Abul Kalam Azad, general manager of agricultural credit department of BB, told the FE that they met high ups of all banks Wednesday to discuss the reasons of decreasing trend of soft loan disbursement and how to increase disbursement.

"We've instructed to bankers to fulfill their social commitment to the farmers and decided to maintain our physical follow-up measures at field level from the next month on the issue," Mr Azad said.

"Bankers have assured us of strengthening their activities in soft loan disbursement by the end of this year. We are hopeful to see a change in situation," he added.

Managing Director of Janata Bank Ltd. Md Aminur Rahman told the FE that due to some unavoidable circumstances and unfavorable weather, they could not do well in soft loan disbursement during the period, but was working on filling the gap soon.

Abdul Hamid Mia, Managing Director of Agrani bank Ltd, also expressed his surprise for not achieving the target of soft loan disbursement, despite efforts.

"Any loan disbursement can see ups and down. But in case of soft loan disbursement we always try to fulfill our target as the central bank has given us special instructions in this regard," Mr Mia added.

"We are now conducting study on how the disbursement can be increased," he said.

A high official of Islami Bank Ltd, preferring not to be identified, said they always try to achieve the bank's disbursement targets.

"We always prefer decentralisation of funds. We always disburse the highest amount of such loans among the farmers," he said.

Islami Bank has disbursed Tk 3.3 billion of the total disbursement of PCBs and FCBs, BB data showed.

Source: The Finance/ Bangladesh/ 30th Nov 2011