To encourage more farmers in the country to enrol themselves for Kisan Credit Cards (KCC), which help them to access crop loans at subsidised rates, the government has decided to waive off processing fee for up to a credit limit of Rs 1.6 lakh, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Monday.

For getting KCC, farmers were supposed to pay initial charges between Rs 2000 and Rs 5000. This was a major deterrent for them to enrol for KCC. Following discussions with the States and other organisations, the government has decided to waive off this charges for up to Rs 1.6 lakh and levy only legal charges for amounts up to Rs 3 lakh, said Sanjay Agarwal, agriculture secretary while addressing a conference of State agriculture ministers here. Even though there are more than 14 crore farmers in the country, less than 7 crore farmers have enrolled for KCC, he said adding that the Centre together with the State governments launched an aggressive campaign to enrol an additional 1 crore farmers for KCC by August 31. Agarwal requested State government officials present at the meeting to embark on an aggressive campaign so that more farmers can benefit from credit facilities made available to them.

Addressing the conference, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the States have a bigger role to play in helping farmers make farming a profitable venture. To help farmers the Centre has launched schemes like Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKisan) and budgetary allocations are already made. “The money is ready and it has to go farmers’ accounts. It is the responsibility of the State governments to ensure that it reaches the farmers,” Tomar said.

Similarly, on the organic farming front, the Minister said while many Northeastern States are doing a good job, majot agricultural States like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are still stuck with model projects. Models alone will not do, the have to go beyond that, Tomar said.

According to PMKisan CEO Vivek Aggarwal, so far 3.56 crore farmers have got the first instalment of the income subsidy, while 3.10 crore received the second. “So far only 43 per cent of Indian farmers have been enrolled for PMKisan out of which 60 per cent have already been paid. The payment to the rest will be made soon, Aggarwal said.

But he urged the State government officials to make sure that 57 per cent of the farmers who are currently outside the ambit of PMKisan are enrolled at the earliest. If the States can enrol the farmers before July 31, the farmers would be able to get the next instalment, he said.

While the States such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana have made good progress in enrolling farmers in their States, many others are lagging much behind. For instance, while there are 1.63 crore farmers in Bihar are eligible for it, only 8.38 lakh farmers have been able to avail the benefit. The progress is also slow in the States like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, he said.

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