IMPLEMENTATION OF AIF

The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund is a medium-long term debt financing facility for investment in viable projects for post harvest management infrastructure and viable farming assets through interest subvention and credit guarantee support. Under the scheme, Rs.1 Lakh Crore is provided by banks and financial institutions as loans with interest subvention of 3% per annum and credit guarantee coverage under CGTMSE and NABSanrakshan for loans up to Rs.2 Crores.

     At the inception of the scheme, a tentative State wise allocation of financing facility was made on the basis of the ratio of total value output of Agriculture and Allied sectors of States/UTs. The details of the allocation is mentioned at Annexure-I.

At the inception of scheme, a tentative allocation of Rs 3980 crore was made for the state of Bihar. As on 30th June 2025, Rs.1440.80 Crore have been sanctioned for 1763 projects. Out of this,  914.64 crore have been disbursed under AIF in Bihar state. The total project cost for these sanctioned projects is Rs.2419 crores. Project-wise details of Loans sanctioned and disbursed in the State of Bihar are given in Annexure-II.

An impact assessment was conducted in December 2023 to evaluate the scheme’s performance, gather beneficiary feedback, and suggest improvements.

            The evaluation highlighted positive impact of the scheme in terms of increase in farmers’ income, increase in agriculture storage capacity, growth of post harvest and value addition infrastructure for agriculture produce, generation of employment and encouraging agriculture entrepreneurship. Although a specific evaluation exclusively for the State of Bihar was not undertaken, the study component included samples from Bihar among other States, and findings were analysed in a holistic manner. The outcomes of the study were generalised at the national level to assess the overall impact of the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) Scheme across the country, including Bihar. The details of the outcome of the study are enumerated hereunder: 

1. 31% of the AIF units availed government subsidies also. Thus, they have been benefitted due to Convergence under AIF.

• ii. Around 85% of the total units, availability of AIF loan was the main reason for starting the unit.

3. On an average about 40% of the project cost of the AIF units was covered by AIF loan.
4. Around 70% of the units have taken loan for creating new infrastructure.

• v. The employment generated by AIF unit activities was relatively higher in peak seasons than in slack season. The average number of persons employed per unit in the peak season was found to be 11. The average was highest i.e. 27 in Rajasthan and lowest i.e. 5 in the state of Maharashtra.

6. Number of persons employed per unit was higher in case of agro processing units.
7. The total capacity created by sample AIF warehouse, cold storage units and silos is around 879 thousand MT. Also, these units have occupied total area of around 2900 thousand sq. feet.
8. Overall responses reveal satisfactory demand for products/services of AIF units and satisfactory income from these units.
9. Most of the units are situated in the rural areas indicating proximity to the agriculture production regions and around 54% of the respondents believed that incomes of farmers have increased because of the AIF units and majority of them reported that the increase in incomes was very high and satisfactory.

• x. Around 54% of the respondents felt that overall, the farmers have benefitted due to the AIF facilities.

ANNEXURE-I

Tentative Allocation of Funds to all States/UTs at the inception of Scheme

(Amount in Rs. Crore)

ANNEXURE-II

Project-wise detail of Loans sanctioned and disbursed in the State of Bihar on 30^th June 2025

(Amount in Rs. Crore)

This Information was provided by UNION MINISTER OF STATE, FOR AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE SHRI RAMNATH THAKUR, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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Kumar Saurabh