Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 29 (ANI): The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has listed the nation’s first social impression bond to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore.
NABARD chairman Shaji KV talking to ANI after the itemizing on the BSE on Friday mentioned it accepted bids value Rs 1,040 at a coupon fee of seven.63 per cent.
Social bonds are fixed-income securities whose proceeds are usually earmarked to finance or re-finance new and present social impression initiatives, particularly for recognized goal populations equivalent to low-income teams, unemployed, or susceptible.
“Actually what we were trying to judge is whether there is enough appetite in the market or not. We found that the market is very much upbeat about these issuances and we got a subscription of 2.86 times…The bond size was Rs 1,000 crore with a greenshoe option of Rs 300 crore,” mentioned the chairman.
“In fact, the market is also sensitive to these sustainability aspects of investing and this is a historic moment actually this is the first-ever triple AAA-rated domestic issuances in social space and I hope that the other market participants also will take note of this. In fact, we’ll also follow up with a lot of such issuances in the future,” the chairman mentioned.
On NABARD’s inexperienced bonds and their itemizing, he was hopeful of getting them listed by the top of the yr.
“Green bonds need a lot of documentation and a lot of more data for verification by the investors. For that whatever the Sebi framework is, it needs to be followed. So that needs a lot of homework from our side. So in that aspect, what we checked is that our balance sheet actually is ready for green bond issuances,” he mentioned.
“The only thing we need to do is we need to do little documentation to demonstrate to the investors that such activities are being undertaken by us and we are in the process of doing that. So hopefully by year-end, we’ll have issuances coming,” he mentioned.
Asked about India imposing a 40 per cent export obligation on onion to take care of its ample home availability, the NABARD chairman, with out moving into the nitty gritty, mentioned these features are within the authorities area.
“Actually, the government will have a holistic view of the price situation and other aspects. So they have taken a balanced view. That is what I can tell at this point in time. Onion price fluctuation is there and we are trying to smoothen those fluctuations through warehousing activities and alsothrough sensitizing the farmers regarding the need to store. And also we are helping the researchers to improve the shelf life of onion. And in that aspect, the onion value chain is what we are concentrating on to smoothen the price fluctuations.”The central authorities had determined it will preserve 3 lakh tonne of onions within the 2023-24 season as buffer stock. In 2022-23, the federal government maintained 2.51 lakh tonne onion as buffer stock. Buffer stock is maintained to satisfy any exigencies and for value stabilisation, if charges go up considerably through the lean provide season.
Rabi onion harvested throughout April – June accounts for 65 per cent of India’s onion manufacturing and meets the patron’s demand until the Kharif crop is harvested in October-November.
Further, when requested about erratic rains that had been witnessed in numerous elements of the nation and was NABARD doing to take care of them, he mentioned they’re implementing a number of irrigation initiatives. India is predominantly depending on monsoon rains for agricultural actions.
“So what we need to do is to reduce the dependence on monsoon to even out the effects of the erratic monsoon. In that context we are implementing a lot of irrigation projects jointly with state governments and also the Jal Jeevan Mission — that is of course drinking water but then that will helpcome in handy for smoothening the effects of erratic monsoon. Then we are having also watershed programs where we are trying to reduce the dependence on monsoon on those areas where we develop the watershed and improve storages and also improve the groundwater levels so that no farmers can lift water in terms of their needs,” he added. (ANI)