Nabard has been financially helping various organizations including cooperative federations in Karnataka for developing modern storage facilities for agricultural products.
But it would now lend money to private companies and businessmen as well for developing the same facilities in the state. This is the first time that Nabard is taking up such a financial involvement, said the Nabard official.
Nabard would spend Rs. 5000 crore on creation of storage facilities as proposed in the union budget for 2013-14.
According to an estimate, Karnataka is likely to have a storage gap of 2.18 million metric tonnes by the close of 2016-17.
Nabard says a number of districts in the state are without storage facilities and the new scheme would aim at bridging the gap.