Karnataka Bank, the private sector lender, is all set to have an agriculture advance portfolio of Rs 61.15 billion by March 2016, with an annual growth rate of 18.84%.

At present, bank has 10 Agriculture Development Branches (ADB), 142 green branches and 52 agriculture field officers (AFOs) as dedicated resources for branches to ensure hassle free agriculture lending and to minimize occurrence of non-performing advances.

Bank will continue to finance the needy borrowers under all sectors of agriculture to ensure inclusive growth in accordance with the recently revised guidelines of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and P Jayarama Bhat MD & CEO of the bank in his key note address at the Agri. Business Conference.

Shares of the bank gained Rs 0.65, or 0.49%, to trade at Rs 132.20. The total volume of shares traded was 65,901 at the BSE (3.10 p.m., Wednesday).