Srinagar, Dec 07: Jammu and Kashmir Bank today inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National E-Repository Limited (NERL) at its Corporate Headquarters here, by virtue of which Bank can provide Pledge Financing to its customers, particularly farmers & traders against Electronic Negotiable Warehouse Receipts (e-NWR).
The Bank’s Executive Director (ED) Sudhir Gupta presided over the function, wherein Deputy General Manager Nishi Kant Sharma signed the MOU on Bank’s behalf and MD & CEO Saurabh Khanna put in the signatures for NERL in presence of Bank’s General Manager (Corporate Banking/MSME) Ashutosh Sareen and Head Business NERL (North & Central India) Vineet Gupta besides other senior officials of the Bank.
Terming the MoU between the two organisations a step towards providing hassle-free financing to the farmers for their Agriculture/ Horticulture produce, Sudhir Gupta urged the stakeholders to make most of the association.
“In our part of the world, farmers store their crops – prominently apple – in the warehouses, CA stores in particular. We have stitched a tie-up with NERL- one of the leading repositories in the country – to facilitate pledge financing against e-NWRs. In the backdrop of recent UTLBC chaired by Secretary DFS (GOI) the association assumes greater significance as both UT and Union Governments are keen on empowering farmers and fruit growers with financial assistance against their stored crops,” he said.
General Manager Ashutosh Sareen termed the tie-up as a futuristic step with a win-win situation for all the stake-holders involved.
“With onboarding of J&K Bank on NeRL repository, the facility for pledge financing in UT of J&K will commence once the CA Stores in J&K are also on boarded on the NERL Repository, This will enable the Bank to provide hassle-free credit to the customers, especially the farmer community for meeting their credit needs”, he added.
Calling J&K Bank a dominant player in the region, MD & CEO NERL Saurabh Khanna highlighted the major facilities provided by his organisation.
“Using innovative technology systems, NERL is working to support farmers, traders, processors and all value chain participants in the commodity markets. eNWR reduces the risks and hassles normally associated with physical receipts and we are happy to see how banks are coming forward and helping to digitize the warehousing ecosystem and making the entire process more robust,” he said.
Notably, NERL is one of the two national repositories in the country registered with Warehouse Development & Regulatory Authority (WDRA) for issuing e-NWRs to the warehouses. The e-NWRs can be utilized for availing finances from Banks against pledge of these receipts.
