The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) has secured Euro 68.87 million (Rs 600 crore) loan from Deutsche Bank for onward lending to cooperatives in the country. An agreement was signed between NCDC and the German bank in presence of the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in New Delhi. The minister also presided over signing of an agreement between the Indian Chamber of Commerce and NCDC to boost farmers linkages with markets. This is for the first time that one of the largest European banks in the world is lending to the NCDC, thus reflecting the confidence of the global financial institution in the Indian development finance institution, particularly at a time when global economic turmoil created by the covid crisis has made lending a challenging proposition. Set up in 1963, the NCDC is a development finance statutory institution under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. It has extended loans to the tune of Euro 16 billion to cooperatives of various sizes since 2014.
