Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched a Common Credit Portal SAFAL on Wednesday. This portal is a Simplified Application for Agricultural Loans. As per reports, this portal can revolutionize credit provisions for farmers and agri-entrepreneurs.
CM attended the program virtually which was organized at the Convention Centre of Lok Seva Bhawan.
“The application is a one-stop solution for farmers and agri-entrepreneurs to avail formal sector credit from Public and Private sector banks, Regional Rural Banks, State Cooperative Banks, and Small Finance Banks,” CM expressed ecstatically.
With this facility, the CM said, farmers and Agri entrepreneurs will have access to more than 300 term loan products being offered by 40 plus partner banks.
He further conveyed, “the SAFAL portal has been integrated with Krushak Odisha as well as the access to 70 plus model project reports. It will ease the loan application process benefiting both the farmers and banks significantly. The portal will also reduce information asymmetry by sending farmers real-time notifications at every stage of their loan application”
He assured that SAFAL will also provide the government with complete visibility of demand and disbursal of formal credit across states and ensure schemes are designed in a data-backed manner.
He expected that SAFAL would be a facilitator of credit to spur the agriculture and allied sectors in our State. This will increase the economic prowess of our farmers in the long run.
Earlier, he said that farmers are the backbone of our economy, and agriculture is the largest employer in the state in addition to being the key to the socio-economic development of our people.
He added that his government, therefore, lays special emphasis on the development of the farming sector through various interventions supported by a comprehensive and inclusive state agricultural policy with the government taking strides in increasing the income of farmers.
Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari appreciated the CM’s vision for the empowerment of farmers’ inclusion in the economic process.
Speaking on the occasion, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain outlined the steps taken by his department for economic development and the welfare of farmers.
Agriculture Production Commissioner-cum-ACS Sanjeev Chopra highlighted the achievement of Odisha in the agriculture sector.
CEO of RBI Innovation Hub and CMD of UCO Bank also spoke on the occasion. They said that Banks appreciate the CM’s efforts for the economic integration of farmers and Agri entrepreneurs. They assured complete support by banks to farmers in all the initiatives of the state government.
Principal Secretary Agriculture Arabinda Padhi gave the welcome address and commissioner-cum-secretary FARD offered the vote of thanks.
Ms Kalinga