PSU Banks has failed to start disbursements of Crop-Loan in Drought-hit Maharashtra - Kishore Tiwari

PSU Banks has failed to start disbursements of Crop-Loan in Drought-hit  Maharashtra - Kishore Tiwari

Dated -2nd June 2019

Despite chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ stress on providing 100% of farmers’ with bank finance, public sector and other commercial banks continue to ignore the credit issue of drought-hit agrarian crisis driven distressed farmers who are committing suicides @ 5 daily as per figures available from SLBC most of PSU banks are yet to start disbursement of fresh crop-loan or reconstruction of pending crop-loan as per RBI-NABARD orders in drought hit districts ,Vasantrao Naik Shetkari Swavalamban (VNSS) mission head Kishore Tiwari reported today urging Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to intervene in this serious agriculture credit problem to sensitise  nationalised banks for being lackadaisical in meeting the farm credit targets fixed by the government.

Earlier the Maharashtra  government roll out the ‘Magel Tyala Karj’ (or crop loan on demand) campaign this kharif season to ensure all farmers get access to institutional loans through public sector banks as last year only 30 per cent farmers had got institutional loans through public sector banks despite loan waiver and this had led to a lot of resentment among farmers so this time we have decided to make it incumbent upon the government administration itself to ensure that the banks don’t falter on this count  by writing  to all district collectors seeking their proactive role in making crop loans available to all eligible farmers as now getting farm advances in time for the ensuing kharif season is a bigger problem than drought,’ said Tiwari.

PSU banks has made mockery of state task force on farm distress guild lines to start  disbursement and achieve target and  deadline of disbursing farm loans by June 15 by fixing the onus on the revenue staff to provide necessary documents like 7/12 extracts in time and mobiles support of banks but my attempts are futile due to hostile functioning of PSU banks  , said Tiwari.

Kishore Tiwari urged Indian prime minister Narendra Modi  to make state chief minister as chairman of SLBC and empower them to take action against bank officers who are  reluctant fearing more defaults. Even restructuring of loans following the drought is only going to defer their liability and increase the burden with fresh loans as farm credit is the one core issue as each year the bankers are lowering the scale of finance. “The Centre has set Rs13 lakh crore as target for agricultural loans, Maharashtra’s share is Rs1.20 lakh crore. with this speed bankers will meet even half this target as on today  loan accounts are yet to be re-structured in drought-affected areas.”The district administration and the banks should be held accountable for the delays in failure to provide crop loans to each and every farmer seeking a loan,”’ Tiwari stressed.

=================================