Kathmandu, March 10

Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) and former Nepal Rastra Bank governor Yubaraj Khatiwada has opined the country needs a separate regulation to govern specialised financial institutions.

Speaking during the 15th anniversary programme of Sana Kisan Bikas Bank Ltd (SKBBL) — a class ‘D’ financial institution — Khatiwada said that specialised financial institutions like agriculture, industrial, clean energy, among others would be able to focus on their special motives if regulatory frameworks are designed accordingly.

SKBBL is a microfinance focused on livelihood improvement of smallholder farmers. SKBBL, currently working in 57 districts through 525 cooperatives, has been extending access to finance to 492,000 families. Till the first half of this fiscal, the financial institution had issued credit worth Rs 30.71 billion and recovered Rs 22.12 billion.

SKBBL has also received Rs five billion from the Nepal government at one per cent interest to provide credit for livestock and meat production activities and the loan was issued to 60,000 rural families, according to Jalan Kumar Sharma, CEO of SKBBL.

The paid-up capital of SKBBL is Rs 402.45 million.

SKBBL has also been authorised to select agriculture students to take part in Israeli government’s ‘learn and earn’ programme. Altogether, 1,150 students have been sent to Israel to study agriculture in reputed institutions of Israel. Among them, 600 have returned after completing 10-month long course and embraced entrepreneurship in agriculture and agro processing, informed Sharma.

In the programme, SKBBL felicitated former ambassador of Israel to Nepal Hanan Goder for his initiative to collaborate with SKBBL to send Nepali students in Israel to learn about agriculture practices there.