First half farm loan sanctions at Rs 95k cr

The government said on Monday that banks have provided Rs 95,064 crore as agricultural loans in the first six months of the current financial year. The amount is less than half of the total farm credit disbursed in the whole of 2007-08.

Banks had disbursed loans to the tume of Rs 2,43,569 crore in 2007-08 as against Rs 2,29,399 crore in 2006-07 and Rs 1,80,485 crore in 2005-06, Minister of State for Agriculture Kanti Lal Bhuria said in a written reply.

Of the total Rs 95,064.16 crore given as farm loans this year, credit from commercial banks stood at Rs 64,988.65 crore, co-operative banks at Rs 19,442.33 crore, regional rural banks at Rs 10,633.18 crore, he said.

 

Bhuria said the government has constituted two funds — Financial Inclusion Fund and Financial Inclusion Technology Fund — with a corpus of Rs 500 crore each, in accordance with the recommendations of the Rangarajan panel on financial inclusion, to provide monetary services to neglected sections.

The government has released Rs 11,463.49 crore as on June 30 from a rehabilitation package of Rs 16,978.69 crore announced for 31 districts of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, which have witnessed maximum number of farmers’ suicides, Bhuria said.

According to Nabard, 6,148,000 loan accounts for farmers have been extenteded waiver of overdue interest and loans has been rescheduled in 3,371,000 accounts under the rehabilitation package, he said.

The minister also informed the House that banks have been told to provide loans to farmers for repaying their debts, taken from informal sources such as money-lenders.

“Banks have been advised to earmark 3 per cent of agricultural credit in 2008-09 for swapping the debt taken by the farmers from informal sources,” Bhuria said

Around 26,729 farmers have benefited from subsidiary income activities while 617,697 gained from extension services, he added.

Bhuria also said the Expenditure Finance Committee of the Ministry of Power has recommended that 20 pilot projects for energy-efficient water pumping may be taken up for the farm sector.

Six states, including Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra, have been selected for starting the projects, it said.

In another reply, Bhuria acknowledged the inconvenience to farmers in the border areas due to fencing activities at international borders.

“Farmers’ entry to agricultural fields across the fencing is regulated through entry and exit gates only and access control measures are taken,” he said.

However, the time for opening and closing of gates have been fixed, the minister said, adding that security is also being provided to farmers.