Commercial banks ignoring NRB’s directive   

Kathmandu, July 29 . Almost all the commercial banks in the country are found ignoring Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB)’s request to compulsorily increase the investment in the agriculture sector to 10 per cent.

The Monetary Policy recently released by the Central Bank states that the commercial banks have only invested 8.6 per cent of their loans in agriculture as of June 15 last fiscal year.

Former president of the National Federation of Small Farmers, Uddhav Adhikari said that although the youths’ attraction is increasing towards agriculture sector, the commercial banks were showing reluctance to issue loans to agriculture sector, either through cumbersome loan issuance process or dilly-dallying.

NRB had released the Monetary Policy on July 24. The NRB generally releases the Monetary Policy a month after presenting the budget in parliament. NRB has, through the Monetary Policy, directed the commercial banks to increase their loan investment in agriculture sector to at least 10 per cent of their net capital.

The Monetary Policy however stated that the number of borrowers taking concessional agricultural loans has increased significantly. It states that the number of farmers taking this type of loan until July 17 has reached 15,916. They have taken Rs 29.36 billion in agricultural loan.