Sana Kisan to distribute reconstruction loan

Kathmandu, June 29: Sana Kisan Bikas Bank Limited (SKBBL) has launched a programme to distribute concessional loan of Rs. 50,000 each to as many as 12,000 severely affected rural smallholder poor households.

Such households will be provided credit at a rate of 5 per cent interest through Small Farmers Agriculture Cooperatives Limiteds (SFACLs) in Dhading, Nuwakot and Rasuwa.

In order to restore livelihood of smallholder rural poor farmers, SKBBL has launched ‘Livelihood Restoration Credit for Earthquake Affected Communities' programme with the support of the Asian Development Bank.

The project has got US$ 5.5 million loan from the government out of the grant provided by the ADB for the purpose of providing Livelihood Restoration Credit Disbursement.

“Besides the loan disbursement to the farmers, community based capacity building and training programme will be conducted for the restoration of earthquake affected communities of rural smallholder farmers in all 14 districts which were severely affected by the quake,” said Jalan Kumar Sharma, chief executive officer of the bank.

Under this programme, 2,400 rural poor farmers will be trained in disaster resilient construction and disaster risk management capacity development. Approximately 1.5 million USD has been allocated for the training purpose.

The bank Wednesday handed over cheques worth Rs. 190 million to 20 SFACLs of Dhading, Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts for re-lending the money to 4,418 rural farmers.

According to Khem Bahadur Pathak, chairman of SKBBL, altogether 756 SFACLs including in the process of hand over were undertaking microfinance activities reaching approximately 550,000 rural poor households.

These cooperatives have a total loan outstanding of about Rs. 28 billion including Rs. 10.50 billion loan from SKBBL.

Joint Secretary of Ministry of Finance Surya Prasad Acharya said that about one third of the total household members of the AFACLs affiliated with SKBBL were largely affected by the devastating earthquake in April and May last year.

ADB country director Kenichi Yokoyama informed that the loan facility was to help families restore their houses, farmland, livestock, or micro-enterprises. “The concessional micro-credit is targeted to particularly poor and vulnerable households that have no alternative sources of financial assistance.”

About 31,832 residences of the members have been fully damaged and more than 79,000 cattle died in the tremors.