GUNTUR: Cash crunch has left most farmers in the Krishna Western Delta region in the lurch. With the sowing operations affected, farmers are turning to private money lenders for help and are in risk of falling back into the debt trap.
Post demonetisation, the loan disbursal to farmers has almost halved in Guntur district. Information available with the District Lead Bank points out that as against the target of disbursing ₹3,010 crore, banks in the district disbursed only ₹1,170 crore during the financial year 2016-17. The situation was far better in 2015-16 when banks could achieve a target of more than 80 per cent with disbursals of ₹2,400 crore. Agricultural crops in over 1.80 lakh hectares are being grown in district.
“Farmers are facing problems as they cannot withdraw more than ₹24,000 for a week. It takes about six weeks to withdraw ₹1.5 lakh. Repayment of loans is also another problem,’’ said Lead Bank Manager G. Sudarshana Rao.
Land records not updated
Farmers, on the other hand, blame the State government as the local revenue authorities have not uploaded the digital records of land on the web land portal.
“Banks are giving the cold shoulder as our land records have not been updated on the portal. We are forced to take loans from private money lenders at exorbitant interests. Even the rescheduling of loans is likely to compound our problems as we end up paying interest on the lines of other commercial loans,’’ said a farmer from Tenali, V. Satyanarayana.
Farmers have been ruing that the lack of cash meant that they would not able to pay daily farm workers, buy pesticides and use smaller notes for other activity.
Minister for Agriculture Prathipati Pulla Rao who convened a meeting of bankers on Saturday asked the banks to give loans and complete the target.
