Dismal MP agri credit growth bankers show least interest

After the sanctioning of education loans, the public and private sector commercial bankers have shown almost no interest in sanctioning farm loans this year.

The farmers in Madhya Pradesh continue to face financial strain and have stayed away from bankers. But the bankers consider last year’s debt waiver scheme being responsible for the low agri credit flow. While state-owned cooperative bankers moved ahead in sanctioning and disbursing priority sector advances, private bankers have issued only 2,708 kisan credit cards (KCCs) to farmers. Against the target of 830,197 KCCs, the public sector commercial banks have distributed only 468,111 cards.

The data on agriculture loans reveal that during March 2008 they stood at Rs 22,440 crore, going up to Rs 30,272 crore by March 2010. However, this year, the credit off-take stood at an almost stagnant figure of Rs 30,869 crore (up to December 2010), a meagre 1.97 per cent growth.

Nearly 65 farmers committed suicide in the state when they found their crop damaged to an irrecoverable limit during the recent winters. Frost-like conditions had hit all crops and the state has estimated Rs 4,000 crore losses to various rabi crops.

“Central government’s debt relief scheme is the prime reason for poor credit off-take. The farmers did not demand loans as they did in the previous years,” said Central Bank of India and state-level bankers’ committee Chairman S Sridharan.

All commercial banks have sanctioned Rs 12,54,512 lakh against 1,220,210 accounts. Andhra Bank sanctioned only Rs 33 lakh, Indian Overseas Bank Rs 561 lakh, United Bank of India Rs 854 lakh. State Bank of Patiala sanctioned no amount in 3,606 accounts, State Bank of Travancore Rs 13 lakh and State Bank of Mysore Rs 10 lakh. However, State Bank of India sanctioned a total of Rs 771,338 lakh in 924,223 accounts. The Laxmi Vilas Bank sanctioned no amount in 136 accounts, The South Indian Bank also sanctioned only Rs 9 lakh in 64 accounts with HDFC and ICICI with Rs 68,626 lakh and Rs 38,181 lakh, respectively. The total agri-loans sanctioned by regional rural banks reached Rs 357,867 lakh in 667,027 accounts and the two cooperative banks sanctioned Rs 564,968 lakh in 331,793 accounts.