If farmers are committing suicide owing to indebtedness, the State’s lending policy is to be blamed, said Nobel laureate Muhammed Yunus, who pioneered the concept of microcredit finance in Bangladesh.
“There is something definitely wrong in the system of lending money and recovering money if farmers are committing suicide because of their inability to repay the loans,” said Prof. Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank in Dhaka, which provides microcredit to the poor in Bangladesh.
Prof. Yunus, who was in Mysuru to inaugurate the Cancer Centre at Narayana Multispeciality Hospital on Friday, told reporters that the terms and conditions for lending money should be reasonable. “There should not be any punishment for the farmers. If there is a crop failure, there should be a way of overcoming the problem,” he said, adding that the farmers should not feel threatened or ashamed.
Fielding queries from reporters, Prof. Yunus said there were no instances of suicides among farmers in Bangladesh. For, the Grameen Bank, which provides “affordable” credit, was also owned by the borrowers.
“They do not make rules which hit them. They will make rules which are good for them.” Prof. Yunus said Grameen Bank was created to fight the menace of moneylenders in Bangladesh, who used to cause suicides and destroy families. Now, very few moneylenders are operating in Bangladesh as the Grameen Bank addresses the financial needs of 90 per cent of the country’s poor. However, Prof. Yunus emphasised the need to find out the main reason for farmers to commit suicide. Referring to the role of moneylenders in the farm crisis in Karnataka, he wondered why the farmers would go to moneylenders if loans were made available to them at a low rate of interest.
COMMents
SHARE