The Centre has decided to revive credit cooperative societies — which have been damaged by a series of recent scandals — by infusing them with a fresh grant of Rs14000 crore.
MUMBAI: The Centre has decided to revive credit cooperative societies — which have been damaged by a series of recent scandals — by infusing them with a fresh grant of Rs14000 crore. State governments are expected to contribute Rs2000 crore for the corpus.
“This decision was taken at a recent meeting attended by the Prime Minister, chief ministers, and agriculture ministers of all states,” Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Saturday.
Pawar said the government is also eager to revive land development banks. Ninety per cent of these banks are sick because of farmers’ inability to repay crop loans. Pawar hinted that this initiative would require thousands of crores more.
“Noted economist A Vaidyanathan was asked to submit his recommendations on the issue,” Pawar said.
“After an in-depth study, we noticed that farmers have not used crop loans for farming but for educating their children and for events such as weddings,” Pawar said. He said some proportion of crop loans was also spent on providing treatment for critically ill family members. “That is why this decision has been taken to help farmers,” he said.
Pawar, however, made it clear that this provision of largesse is strictly a one-off initiative. “This measure will not be repeated because it is not advisable,” he said.
Commenting on farmers’ suicides, he said, “Farmers divert crop loans for other purposes because they do not have the option of securing consumption credit. The government is working on ways to extend this credit.”
Bumper Crop of Rebates
- Interest on crop loans to be cut further, below the current 7% mark
- The Union government had recently cut the interest rate from 11% to 7%
- Government of Maharashtra went a step ahead and made it 6%
- Congress-ruled Karnataka went farther, cutting the rate to 4%
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