Access to appropriate financial services has always been a constraint in the isolated char areas of Bangladesh due to unavailability of financial institutions like banks or micro-finance institutions. Although there is scope to produce quality agricultural products but due to lack of adequate technical assistance and unavailability of quality inputs, farmers are unable to maximize the production. In addition, lack of the communication and poor infrastructure, absence of market linkage and supply chain management system famers are not getting fair price of their products in the areas. As a result the farmers are deprived from the mainstreaming development. Considering the aspect, GUK has taken a project initiative to address the constraints with the assistance of M4C under Swiss Contact and Char Development Research Center (CDRC) of RDA.
The main objective of the project is to create access to appropriate financial services for the char farmers living in island chars of Sariakandi upazilla under Bogura district. The specific objective of this project is to provide matching fund to compensate GUK against the loss of GUK’s introducing Seasonal Loan Products (SLP) to the char farmers and lest its operational feasibility through promotion and distribution of regular microfinance as well as seasonal crop loan products in the hard to reach char areas. GUK disbursed Tk. 17,330,000 among 951 char famers as seasonal loan for production of different crops like chilli, jute, maize, ground nut and rice and to rear beef cattle