Maharashtra Govt. decision to give Rs.50000 crop loan to regular, non-default as “Interest-free” has been termed as futile and useless for the drought hit cotton farmers where bankers failed to provide the fresh crop loan to farmers as till date only 12% target of crop loan set by NABARD has been achieved thanks to apathy of Maharashtra administration, kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha Jan andolan Samiti(VJAS) has informed today in the press note .
“year of drought and cotton crop failure and central Govt. has ordered reconstruction of crop loan of all drought hit farmers but till date only 1.2 lakhs farmers as against the total 2 million debt trap farmers of region manage to get fresh crop loan even NABRD has set the crop loan target of Rs..2460 but bankers have disbursed only Rs.314 crore as per official figure as on 25th June 2010 hence such interest free loan facility will only benfiting the farmers of western Maharashtra and this nothing but the hoax for dying vidarbha farmers .
It was expected that on agriculture credit front in dying field of vidarbha where farmers are committing suicides due to debt , Maharashtra Govt. will take urgent steps as per the last report of Dr. Narendra Jadhav committee which has been accepted by Govt. asking for the bankers credit reforms in suicide prone west vidarbha which are related to the need for restructuring of the rural financial institutions and also making them socially more sensitive. In the case of co-operative banks, suggestions made by the Vaidyanathan Committee be implemented expeditiously and asked the administration to take the steps which are
Agricultural Credit Planning
While providing credit, banks often place a number of undue restrictions on farmers by introducing rigid criteria about season, cropping pattern and the scale of finance. It is imperative to bring in some flexibility in this respect. In this regard, instead of the prevailing cropping pattern, an average cropping pattern could be used and a limit set accordingly. The task of reformulating the scale of finance should be delegated by the State Level Krishi Vikas Parishand to an independent professional institution.
Alternate to Money Lenders
The massive Debt-Waiver scheme has not addressed the indebtedness arising from the non-institutional credit. There is an imperative need to create an effective alternative to the prevailing system of moneylenders and relieving the farmers from their clutches. In this regard, a Plan for
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1.Atleast one member of each family in the village should become a member of some Self-help Group (SHG) in the village.
2.Every rural and semi-urban branch of each bank should adopt one village in its jurisdiction.
3. Since at least one member of every family in the village would be a member of SHG and through the SHG to an institutional source of credit, a 100 per cent financial inclusion would be achieved and over a three-year period the village can be free of indebtedness from moneylenders.”
This is worst ever performance of agriculture credit and institutionalized crop loan to already agrarian crisis hit region which has almost nullified the effect of all bailout packages given by state and central Govt. since 2005 that cover Chief Minister Relief Package-2005 (Rs.1075 crore),Prime Minister Relief Package-2006(Rs.3750 crore) ,central govt. loan waiver-2008(Rs.71,000 crore) and Maharashtra Govt. extended loan waiver -2009 (Rs.6350 crore) ,Tiwari added.
‘In yavatmal district alone last bankers achieved 100% crop loan disbursement target this year they kept Rs.910 crore target and till date achieved Rs.234 crore which shows that bankers are not ready to give fresh crop loan to the drought hit farmer even after R.B.I. has issued orders more over C.B.I. raid on Bham-Raja Allhabad Bank has exposed the corruption and hostile functioning of banks ,there are reports of most branches of central bank of India which is leading bank in the district that manager are demanding money to disburse fresh crop loan but it is not possible to for every distressed debt trap farmers to go Nagpur C.B.I office and arrange trap ,we have demanding fresh crop loan to every drought hit farmers so that they are not forced to go to private money lender who are the main culprit of on going cotton farmers suicides but nobody in the administration even look at the our demand seriously resulting economic crisis and credit crunch in west vidarbha which has aggravated the on going agrarian crisis ,inviting more farm suicides in the region, farmers are urging central govt. intervention which is not coming that’s unfortunate’ Tiwari said
1 comment:
It is a very sad state of affair that banks should deny loans to farmers. In fact it is in the best interest of the banks to finance them through Kisan Credit Cards. This particular segment of bank loans is the lowest NPA level segment amongst all segments.
Your suggestions about implementing Moneylenders Free Villages project is commendable and timely. In fact Jadhav Committee report has many valuable and practical recommendations which are ignored and more attention was given to some emotional issues concerning comments on reports of Mr. P. sainath.
Its high time activists like Mr. Kishor take pragmatic and practical view and focus on non-emotive issues. I don't say that you do not do that. So all the very best.
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