Nabard sanctions Rs 280 cr RIDF assistance to Odisha

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Feb 26:

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has sanctioned projects worth Rs 280.92 crore to the Odisha government under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) Tranche XX for the year 2014-15 fiscal.

With this, the total amount sanctioned by the bank to the state government during the year has gone up to Rs 2265.13 crore under RIDF Tranche XX for creation of infrastructure in various sectors such as irrigation, rural connectivity (roads and bridges), fisheries, animal husbandry etc.

This present sanction includes 31 flood protection/irrigation system improvement projects involving assistance of Rs229.50 crore and 5124 Minor Irrigation (MI) projects (5000 bore well, 79 river lift, 45 tube wells involving assistance of Rs 51.42 crore.

These irrigation projects envisage to create an irrigation potential of 79422 hectares in the state.

Cumulatively since inception of RIDF, NABARD has sanctioned Rs 11608 crore to the state for implemention of more than 1.97 lakh projects under various sectors such as irrigation, rural connectivity, animal husbandry infrastructure development, jetties/ passenger waiting halls for inland waterway transport and rural drinking water supply system etc.

This apart, with an objective of development of warehousing facilities in 41 Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS), NABARD has sanctioned an amount of Rs.21.95 crore towards construction of 41 godowns/warehouses of capacities 300MT to 1000MT in 10 districts of the state under Warehouse Infrastructure Fund (WIF) for 2014-15.

These projects envisage creation of additional storage capacity of 17,300 MT which could be used in storage of agriculture produces of the state.