Chhattisgarh farmers to get 3% loans

Farmers in Chhattisgarh will get agricultural loan at an interest rate of three per cent.

“The state government has decided to curtain the rate of interest on agriculture loan from six per cent to three per cent and the farmers in the state will now get the loan at an interest rate of three per cent," Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh said in his Independence day address at Police Parade Ground here.

Dr Singh claimed that this will be the lowest ever rate of interest offered by any state in the country on agriculture loan.

“The BJP-led state government is committed to the cause of farmers and poor, who constitute about 90 per cent of the state population,” the Chief Minister added. The state government had earlier brought down the agriculture loan from 14 per cent to six per cent after the BJP assumed power in 2003.

“Now the farmers can procure loans worth Rs 800 crore that too at three per cent rate of interest,” Dr Singh said.

The Chief Minister said that after the revised list of people living below poverty line (BPL), around 3.6 million poor families in the state would now get 35 kilograms of rice every month at the rate of Rs 3 per kilogram while the handicapped would be provided 10 kg rice at the same rate every month under the 'Mukhya Mantri Khadyan Surakshya Yojana' (Chief Minister's Food Security Programme).