Country's pandemic-hit agricultural sector will continue to get financial support from the government's Tk 5,000-crore stimulus package until June 30 this year.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) has extended the deadline for disbursement of the fund until June 30, this year.
"The deadline has been extended further for proper implementation of the special refinancing scheme for the agriculture sector," said the central bank on Wednesday.
The previous deadline was expired on March 31.
A lender can also disburse a maximum of 40 per cent of its agriculture loan disbursement target to a single sub-sector, which was 30 per cent previously.
As many as 43 banks signed participation agreements in April last year with the BB on disbursing farm credit from the low-cost stimulus fund. The BB also set separate targets for those banks to disburse the low-cost loans.
At the end of February this year, the 43 lenders disbursed Tk 3,563.23 crore among 151,717 farmers, which was 71.26 per cent of the total funds.
Senior central bank officials expressed their dissatisfaction over the slow disbursement of loans to the agriculture and the cottage, micro, small, and medium enterprise sectors from the stimulus funds.
To tackle the economic losses caused by the outbreak of the deadly virus, the BB on April 14 last year launched a Tk 5,000-crore stimulus fund for the agriculture sector.
The tenure for the loans was set at 18 months, including a grace period of six months.
Banks will borrow the funds at a one per cent interest rate and lend at four per cent to farmers in line with the BB guidelines.
But the stimulus funds did not reach the marginal farmers due to issues related to collateral and bureaucratic complexities in the banks, according to experts.
