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The National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (Nabard) will work with the Karnataka Government to draw up an action plan to push agricultural credit and also cover all farmers in the State by September 30 this year.
SLBC
Nabard, after meeting all the lead district managers (LDMs) or lead bank managers in the State, has now sought the help of State-level bankers' committee (SLBC) to request both public and private banks to implement the rapid action plan to cover over 70 lakh farmers.
“The action plan to push agricultural credit is in accordance with a directive from the Union Secretary Ministry of Finance, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to adopt various strategies to cover all farmers with Kisan Credit Card (KCC) by September 30,” Mr S.N.A Jinnah, Chief General Manager, Nabard, said at the SLBC meeting held on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Finance has also directed all State-level bankers' committee (SLBC) convenors to hold a separate meeting of bankers to prepare a rapid action plan. “For covering the State, we have also asked all our district development managers (DDMs) to prepare Potential Linked Credit Plan specific to district needs,” said Mr Jinnah.
Addressing the bankers at the SLBC meeting, Mr Basant Seth, Chairman, SLBC Karnataka and Chairman and Managing Director, Syndicate Bank, said banks in Karnataka have disbursed Rs 5,435 crore under crop loans — 35 per cent of the annual target of Rs 15,712 crore. “Having regard to the potential and also the rapid action plan for agricultural loaning, the target under agricultural credit has been raised from Rs 25,790 crore to Rs 31,380 crore, indicating growth of 21 per cent compared to last year,” he added.
Mr Seth said each branch has to map all villages under its service area and provide banking services by opening a branch/business correspondent or ATM. “Banks should disseminate this information to field-level functionaries and monitor the performance at the branch level so that the task is achieved in the next three weeks,” he added.
To make the action successful, “We have been given a directive to provide a simplified application form for crop loan for farmers and also levy no charges to small and marginal farmers towards documentation fee, inspection, advocate, processing and renewal,” said an official of a public sector bank. All farmers would be given a no-frill account and a Kisan Credit Card.
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