Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wrote to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday requesting him to permit the district credit co-operative (DCC) banks to accept the Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes as deposits from its customers who are mainly farmers.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said barring DCC banks from accepting the old notes had come in the way of farmers paying up their co-operative loans within deadline. He expressed concern that failure to repay the loan within deadline would result in farmers losing the interest subsidy and also becoming ineligible to get loans for the rabi season.
This had also affected remittance of milk sales’ money by the milk co-operative societies to the DCC banks as well as payment of bills by the DCC banks to milk co-operative societies, he said.
Pointing out that lakhs of farming families in the State depend on the 21 DCC banks and their branches, the Chief Minister said debarring these banks from executing the demonetisation scheme would amount to “unbanking” millions of farmers in one stroke without providing any alternative to them.
