Nabard disburses Rs 16,500 crores for rural infrastructure projects under RIDF in first 10 months of FY21

In the first 10 months of the current financial year, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has sanctioned Rs 30,200 crore and disbursed Rs 16,500 crore for various rural infrastructure projects across the country under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF).The RIDF, which was set up in 1995, is a dedicated fund to create social assets in rural India.

“In FY21, the sanctions to the RIDF stood at Rs 30,200 crore as against the corpus of Rs 30,000 crore. The disbursement for the current financial year as on January 31, 2021 stands at Rs 16,500 crore,” Nabard chairman G R Chintala said in a statement.

Since the inception of the fund, Nabard has disbursed Rs 3.11 lakh crore for different rural infrastructure projects, it said.

Chintala said this fund has constituted around 10 per cent of gross capital formation in rural areas.

Over the years, the RIDF has become a dependable source of funding for states and union territories for building, strengthening rural infrastructure in critical areas like agriculture and irrigation, rural connectivity and social sector, including drinking water, primary health and education.

Here, it could be noted that in the Union Budget 2021-22, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced to enhance the allocation to the RIDF to
Rs 40,000 crore from Rs 30,000 crore. She also increased the corpus of the Micro Irrigation Fund by Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore.