Good news for farmers and startups, RBI changed the rules for taking loans
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued revised guidelines related to Priority Sector Lending (PSL) on Friday. The central bank has said that after extensive consultations with all concerned, the guidelines related to PSL were amended after review keeping in mind the emerging needs of the country and inclusive growth. Friendly lending policy has been emphasized in the new guideline. Its objective is to achieve long-term development goals. The central bank said the target for 'small and marginal farmers' and 'weaker sections' is being increased in a phased manner.
RBI has said that in the new guidelines related to PSL, an attempt has been made to remove the regional disparities in lending under the priority sector. Also, the districts where the flow of loans given under the priority sector is relatively low, they have been given more weightage. According to RBI, bank finance of Rs 50 crore will be available for startups in PSL. Now farmers will be able to get loans under priority sector for setting up solar plants and also for compressed biogas plants. The credit under Ayushman Bharat has also been doubled. It may be noted that RBI had last reviewed the PSL guidelines in April 2015.
RBI has said that under the revised guidelines of PSL, loans will be available under the PSL scheme for setting up of solar power plants and for setting up of compressed bio gas plants to make grid connected agriculture pumps solar-powered. Along with this, this initiative will also increase the credit flow to the renewable energy and health infrastructure sector. This is because the loan limit for renewable energy has been doubled. Along with this, the loan limit for health infrastructure has also been increased to double. After this decision of RBI, small and marginal farmers and weaker and deprived sections of the society will be able to get loans easily from the bank. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that RBI has made guidelines related to PSL. This will enable more credit in credit crunch areas.
Apart from this, the central bank also said that priority sector credit has been extended to some identified districts. These include those districts where there was a lack of priority sector credit earlier. The credit target for small and marginal farmers and weaker sections will be increased in a phased manner. Higher credit limit has been fixed for Farmers Producer Organization (FPO) and Farmers Producer Companies (FPC). Let us tell you that RBI had included startups in priority sector lending last month.
