Bank of Baroda aims to empower farmers in Karnataka by providing financial support, technological tools, and market access to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability, according to Beena Vaheed, Executive Director of the bank.
In an informal chat with businessline on the sidelines of the inauguration of the regional office of the bank in Mangaluru on Tuesday, she highlighted various initiatives taken by the bank to support the agricultural sector in Karnataka, aiming to enhance productivity and financial inclusion for farmers.
Referring to the integration of the bank’s system with the FRUITS (Farmer Registration and Unified beneficiary Information System) portal of the Karnataka government, she said the integration is aimed at reducing turnaround time for credit flow and will reduce risk of fraud or mis-utilisation of land records to avail agriculture loans.
The bank will soon enter into a tie up with with the Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Mission to finance SHGs (self-help groups) under the National Rural Livelihood Mission scheme. The bank has highest credit linkage to SHGs in the State, which, is an achievement, she said. The bank has deployed around ₹5,854 crore in SHGs in Karnataka State.
She said the bank is going to provide crop loans up to ₹2 lakh through Digital BKCC (Baroda Kisan Credit Cards) very shortly. It has already deployed BKCC advances of around ₹1,700 crore in Karnataka.
The new Baroda Kisan Pride scheme is aimed at targeting farmers who are adopting scientific practices in agriculture. “We are financing more than 100 per cent and up to 250 per cent of the scale of finance as fixed by State-level / district-level technical committees so that we can encourage farmers to adopt scientific practices,” she said.
Asked how the bank is leveraging the branch network of the erstwhile Vijaya Bank in the State, she said that the Bank of Baroda has increased its presence in rural areas to 282 branches (December 2024) from 12 (as on March 2019) before amalgamation. “This improves bank’s share of rural branch network in the State from 10 per cent (March 2019) to 41 per cent (December 2024). This helps the bank to leverage its products to reach more rural customers,” she said.
The bank has a branch network of 687 branches in Karnataka. Of them, 128 are metro branches, and 120 are urban branches. The bank has 433 semi-urban and rural branches in the State. The bank has two zones in the State – Bengaluru and Mangaluru.
She said the composition of RAM (Retail, Agriculture, MSME) in total advances has increased from 83 per cent (March 2024) to 85 per cent (January 2025) in the State, and the bank is focused to continue the same momentum.