Jharkhand witnesses slow progress in kisan card distribution

The Kisan credit card scheme (KCC) aims at providing adequate and timely support from the banking system to the farmers for their short-term credit needs for cultivation of crops. The KCC mainly helps farmers for purchase of inputs and other farming activities during cropping season. In this direction, Jharkhand is lagging behind and recorded slow progress in distribution of kisan cards in the state.

The forty two state-level bankers’ committee (SLBC) meeting first held in the state capital recently after imposition of the President’s rule in Jharkhand on January 18 this year, advisor to the state governor Madhukar Gupta expressed displeasure over the poor performance of the nationalized ba nks of the state in providing KCC to the farmers to avail timely loan from the banks.Over15 lakh farmers are yet to get KCC and formation of self-help groups (SHGs) to utilize the credit flow from banks at the grassroots level is still inadequate, he added.

He expressed surprise that as against 6,16,493 applications for KCC received, all banks in the state have collectively issued 5,46,677 KCC against the applications forwarded by the state government to the banks stand at 7,10958. He stressed the need of reducing the gap between industrialization and prevailing poverty.

Principal secretary of the state agriculture department, A K Singh said that the banks should take speedy measures in disbursing KCC to the farmers and also adhere to their target. Principal secretary of human resource development (HRD), D K Tiwary alleged that nationalized banks in the state did not take interest in providingeducation loan to the students for which interest on the principal amount was not required to pay to the loaners whose families income was below Rs 4.5 lakh.

The banks officials who attended the meeting said that it becomes difficult to disburse agriculture loan to farmers in absence of collateral. The issue of land records for updating for all the 24 districts of the state is being discussed in the SLBC since after the constitution of the state (Jharkhand).llahabad Bank executive director T R Chawla expressed dissatisfaction over the deterioration of performance of the banks in Jharkhand in thelast quarter and asked to overcome it in the remaining quarter of thecurrent financial year.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) general manager, Jharkhand, H N Panda asked the banks to work out a three-year plan after due approval from their respective boards to ensure credit flow.