Farm loans touch Rs 95,064 cr in H1, trail last year figures

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday said banks have provided Rs 95,064 crore in agricultural loans in the first six months of this fiscal, though the amount is less than half of the total farm credit disbursed in the entire last fiscal.

The banks had given credit amounting to Rs 2,43,569 crore in 2007-08 against Rs 2,29,399 crore in 2006-07 and it was 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 farm loans in the first half of this fiscal, 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 added.

The minister 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 of the population.

The government has also released Rs 11,463.49 crore as on June 30 this year 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' suicide, Bhuria said.

According to NABARD, 61.48 lakh loan accounts of farmers have been extenteded waiver of overdue interest and the loans has been rescheduled in 33.71 lakh farm loan accounts under the rehabilitation package, he said.
In reply to another question, the minister also informed the House that banks have been told to provide loans to farmers for repaying their debts taken from informal sources like money lenders.