Mumbai: Agricultural credit is likely to reach to about Rs2.50 lakh crore during the 2008-09 fiscal, falling short of the targetted Rs2.80 lakh crore.

As per the provisional data, credit to the farm sector has reached Rs2.13 lakh crore till February and is expected to touch Rs2.50 lakh crore during the entire 2008-09 fiscal, a senior government official said today.

Asked when the data will be available, he said the figure is provisional as collecting information from all the banks take time.

The government had set a target of Rs2.80 lakh crore as agriculture credit disbursal for the 2008-09 fiscal, out of which commercial banks share was Rs1.95 lakh crore while cooperative banks were projected to extend Rs55,000 crore and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) Rs30,000 crore.

According to the mid-year review of the economy, farm loans worth Rs 95,064 crore have been disbursed between April and September.

Commercial banks have extended agriculture credit worth Rs64,988.65 crore in the first six months of the last fiscal, while cooperative banks lent Rs19,442.33 crore. RRBs provided farm credit worth Rs10,633.18 crore in the review period.

Agriculture loans increased to Rs2.44 lakh crore in 2007-08 from Rs1.80 lakh crore in 2005-06.