Minister for Agriculture Pocharam Srinivas Reddy has expressed dissatisfaction at the poor lending to the agricultural and allied sectors by the public sector banks, and requested them to extend maximum support to farmers who have sown over a crore acres during this Kharif.
Addressing the 16th State Level Bankers’ Meet here on Thursday, Mr.Reddy drew attention to the fact that the loans disbursed in Kamareddy district could cover only 21 % of the farmers. The status of term loans disbursement too is poor, he pointed out.
Spare farmers
“For Rabi, almost all the projects are full, and hectic sowing is expected. The bankers should come forward to support farmers,” he said. He also expressed concerns about the loan waiver scheme not being implemented in the rural branches, where managers are claiming they have not received any orders from their headquarters.
The matter of payment of interest on the ‘Vaddi Leni Runaalu’ scheme (interest-free loans) should be thrashed out between government and the bankers, and farmers should not be harassed for the same.
In addition, he requested the bankers to work out a way so that the insurance amount is cut from the crop loan before the deadline for payment of premium.
Minister for Finance, Eatala Rajender too warned the bankers against seeking deposits from the poor people availing loans for the 20 % margin required on bank-linked subsidy schemes. Banks are forcing them to keep 10 % as deposits, he alleged, and urged them to understand local conditions and extend support to the unemployed youth to set up their own businesses. He requested bank branches be set up wherever the population exceeded 5,000. Agriculture Secretary C. Parthasarathi, Finance Secretary Sandeep Kumar Sultania, besides Regional Director of RBI R. Subramanian, NABARD CGM P.Radhakrishnan, and officials of the lead bank SBI were present.
