90 pc farmers repay loans: NABARD

90 pc farmers repay loans: NABARD
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 8
The Chief General Manager of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Jammu and Kashmir, ML Sukhdeve, said today that 90 per cent of the farmers using Kisan credit cards across the state were repaying loans.

On the sidelines of a press conference here, Sukhdeve said, “So far, 42,000 kisan credit cards have been issued across the state and out of these 8,000 were issued this year alone”.

He added, “The Kisan Credit Card scheme of NABARD for the welfare of farmers has got a good response. Nearly 90 per cent of the farmers have been repaying debts”.

Sukhdeve said the card was valid for three years and the cardholders had to get it renewed after a stipulated time. “It has been observed that most of the farmers are using this scheme, as the state government is also helping us,” he added.

Sukhdeve admitted that though the bank had launched a number of projects to create awareness among the farmers about the schemes, these had not reached out to all villages. “Most of the people in villages don’t know English or Hindi. We have planned to telecast five documentaries in Dogri, Urdu and Punjabi languages so that these people could avail of the modern schemes being launched by the bank from time to time,” he said.

He added, “Earlier, we published some literature in Urdu, which proved helpful”. He said the bank had supported 300 Farmers Clubs in the state and all of them were doing well.

“To encourage financing of the agriculture and rural sector, a potential credit plan of Rs 3,204 crore has been planned for 2011-12,” said Sukhdeve. He added that the bank had sanctioned Rs 902 crore under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF).