Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked Financial Services Minister Vivek Joshi to submit a report within a month on the reasons for the slowdown in disbursement of farm credit by scheduled commercial banks under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme, while assuring banks that it will Upload the necessary data before the 31st.
Sitharaman, who launched the Kisan Rin Portal (KRP) and KCC Ghar Ghar Abhiyaan campaign to extend the benefits of KCC to every farmer, said the disbursement and sanction of credit under KCC by Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCB) and cooperative sectors are completely opposite . Although Standard Chartered’s sanctioned credit is higher than the cooperative sector, in terms of disbursement, Standard Chartered’s share is lower than that of the cooperative sector.
Active loan
Earlier in the meeting, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana CEO Ritesh Chouhan gave a presentation showing that of the Rs 847 crore sanctioned, SCB’s share was 58 per cent, while out of the total active loans (referring to disbursements) under KCC Across all institutions, the proportion of SCBs was 37%. On the other hand, the share of the cooperative sector is 22% and that of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) is 20% in approved KCC loans. But in terms of expenditure, the share of cooperative sector is 46% and that of RRB is 17%.
“The difference between sanction amount and disbursement is huge. SCB seems to sanction better but disburse less. While the co-operative sector sanction is lower but disbursement is higher. I need to understand why there is a difference between Standard Chartered and Co-operative Bank The performances are so diametrically opposed,” she said.
As the Ministry of Agriculture will start activities under KCC from October 1, all banks, cooperative societies and RRBs will have to upload all data by December 31, Sitharaman assured that banks will definitely adhere to the deadline as this will cover 73 thousand Ten thousand KCC beneficiaries also include fishermen and dairy farmers.
KCC’s mission
Sitharaman said that the government has allocated sufficient funds under the KCC scheme to ensure easy short-term loans to farmers and involve them in the scheme. Additionally, she said real-time crop estimates will help the economy and ensure farmers get the right price at the end of the crop season.
Addressing the event, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that the budget of the agriculture ministry has been increased from Rs 23,000 crore (2013-14) to Rs 125,000 crore (2023-24). He also said that as around 90 million beneficiaries have been identified and verified under the PM Kisan scheme, the KCC Ghar Ghar Abhiyaan aims to connect around 150 million beneficiaries who are yet to be covered by the KCC scheme.
