The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Rajshahi

The Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB) has launched a special loan programme for extensive fish cultivation to increase employment opportunities fulfilling protein deficiency in the northern region in the country.

Officials concerned said toady the RAKUB adopted the credit programme titled "RAKUB fisheries village" to alleviate poverty and create more jobs through extension of fish farming for economic growth.

The main target of the programme is to encourage the small farmers in fish farming with loans on easy term so that they could produce more fish in the small ponds and other nearby closed water-bodies after using modern and scientific technologies.

The programme will give emphasis on forming each fisheries village with at least 10/12 small ponds and other nearby water bodies at potential places.

It will also create opportunities for the farmers to get fish-farming inputs like feed and marketing of the produced fish without any hindrance.

RAKUB Managing Director Fazlul Hoque told BSS that there has been a bright prospect for increasing fish production in all the northern districts with best uses of the existing natural resources.

Taking advantages of the situation, he said the bank has selected the fisheries sector as priority one for supplementing the government's efforts to attain the millennium development goals (MDGs).

At the preliminary stage, the RAKUB chief said 55 upazila and union-level branches of the bank in Rajshahi, Natore, Pabna, Sirajganj, Naogaon, Dinajpur, Bogra, Rangpur and Kurigram districts have been given power to disburse the credit. After assessing the success, the credit programme would be expanded gradually everywhere in the northern region. The RAKUB has established an easy process for extending necessary credits to small and medium fish farmers so that they can contribute a lot to the economic growth side by side with making the region free of poverty.

In addition to creating new efficient fish farmers, the scheme will help increase fish cultivation providing them with special facilities so that they could be brought to the mainstream of the national economic development activities.

Headquartered in Rajshahi, the RAKUB, in addition to crop loans, has been providing credits for the fish culture through its 364 branches in all the 16 districts under Rajshahi division since its inception in 1987. It has achieved a significant success in making the region surplus with food through quality consumer services.

Cultivation of various fishes, especially pungus, carp, monosex tilapia and thai koi, has been selected for investment in the first phase.

The programme has a provision for sanctioning the loan up to Taka 5 lakh in different potential and prospective fields. The farmers having experiences of fish farming and at least four- week training on improved fish cultivation would be given preference for getting the loan.

Fazlul Hoque said the new programme would help provide easy credit facilities for the small fish farmers as a vital force for poverty alleviation and national economic growth.

Apart from this, he said the scheme would also create huge job opportunities, and increase the flow of loan disbursement and recovery through relationship banking that would assist flourishing promising fish farmers as the substitute of venture capital in the northern region.