SBI to organize mega farmers' meet on June 8

The State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, will organize farmers' meets at 15,500 rural and semi-urban branches across the country on June 8.

The SBI hopes to reach out to at least 10 lakh farmers through these meets on the day.

At a time when the farm sector is going through a period of stress in various states of the country, the SBI has taken this initiative to reach out to farmers to smoothen the flow in credit for agriculture.

During the meet, SBI branches will receive applications for fresh loans as well as applications for renewal or enhancement of existing loan

.

"In view of the upcoming Kharif season, we have instructed branches to actively pursue lending to farmers in line with the scale of finance fixed for various crops. For crop loans upto Rs.3 lakhs, the effective interest rate is only 4 percent per annum, if the repayment is made on time. As the MET department has predicted normal monsoon, we expect credit off-take to be good this season," said Rajnish Kumar, Managing Director, National Banking Group, SBI.

"Agriculture had witnessed a growth of 4.1 percent last year in the country and the trend is likely to continue," Kumar added.

As on March 31, 2017, the SBI had reported a growth of Rs. 9,000 crore. under agriculture financing with improvement in recovery.

SBI's market share under agricultural finance has increased to 29 percent.

Post merger, SBI had a total loan outstanding of Rs.2,70,000 crore (Two lakh seventy thousand crore) in the agriculture segment.

This mega meet is an attempt by SBI to get closer to farmers, a bank statement said.