Our Bureau

Bangalore , Jan. 20

THE public sector Syndicate Bank has set up a venture capital fund along with Shell Foundation International.

The venture fund would have a corpus of Rs 12.5 crore. Shell has contributed about half million dollars for the venture fund. The fund would be specifically targeted at rural India, in sectors such as agro products, small-scale industries and biotechnology sectors.

Top Syndicate Bank officials said the fund would extend margin money support to all these sectors including equity funds. The fund would not be regional in character, the officials said and added, depending on the off take, the bank was prepared to enlarge the corpus, by involving more public sector banks or create a second region or sector-specific funds.

The fund, the officials said, was targeting a return of at least 15 per cent in its assistance for investments in such venture.

The bank has also taken up a project for promoting 2,000 self-help groups, they said in association with the Sree Kshetra Darmasthala Rural Development Project. The groupformed under the project would be given financial assistance of about Rs 20 crore by Syndicate Bank over a three- year time frame for taking up income generating activities.

The project was intended to bring over 8,000 hectares of land under sustainable cultivation through training and capacity building of over 9,600 small and marginal farmers. In addition, the bank has also agreed to extend loans at concessional rates of interest to these self-help groups.

The project would focus initially in the four taluks of Bantwal, Kundapur, Udupi and Sulia in coastal Karnataka.

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