Bank of Punjab to lend Rs 5b to farmers this year
Pakistan Times Business & Commerce Desk

LAHORE: The Bank of Punjab (BoP) will extend agriculture loans worth Rs 5 billion to the farmers during the current year.

“We extended agriculture loans worth Rs 3 billion during the year 2004 under different schemes,” Managing Director BoP, Hamesh Khan told newsmen at the inaugural session of the one-day seminar on ‘Livestock and Dairy Farming’ at a local hotel on Friday.

He said the total volume of loans extended to agriculture and its downstream sectors during the previous year stood at Rs 10 billion.

On loans extended under Punjab Chief Minister’s Livestock Sector Self-Employment Scheme, Khan said that the bank had so far provided loans worth Rs 253 million to people in rural areas for the purchase of milch animals.

“We have set a target of Rs one billion loans for the year 2005 under this scheme,” he said. Earlier speaking at the seminar, Hamesh Khan said that of the 253 branches of the BoP, 160 were extending agri credit to farmers.

“We have recruited agricultural credit officers (ACOs) to provide loans and other services at the doorsteps of farmers,” he said, adding that promotion of livestock could help increase the country’s exports significantly.

“Pakistan exported livestock and its products worth Rs 530 million during the year 2003-04,” Khan said, and observed that Pakistan, with an annual milk production of 27 billion litres, was ranked as the fifth largest milk producing country in the world.

Of this production, he remarked, it was regretable that only 3 percent was sterilized and packaged before sale, while 97 percent was marketed in unhygienic and unsafe modes to the general public.

The Bank of Punjab chief said that pasteurization and packaging of the country’s milk production could help tap the demand of milk in other countries of the region.

He said more concerted efforts were needed to increase the production of meat in the country as the demand of this commodity was growing at the rate of 8 percent annually, against just 1.8 percent growth in production.

He said the total number of animals including buffaloes, cows, sheep, goats, camels, horses etc stood at about 121 million.

Justice (r) Mian Mehboob Ahmad, Executive Director, East West Insurance Company Limited, Pervez Yunus, and Managing Director The Metropolitan Life Assurance Company of Pakistan, Maheen Yunus also spoke on the occasion.

The managers of three BoP branches in Punjab province- Muhammad Saleem Bhatti (Kasur), Mohammad Tahir (Pattoki) and Rana Ikramullah (Deepalpur) were awarded merit certificates for showing superb performance in extending and recovering agriculture loans during the year 2004.●