A banker’s thought for our ‘Covid Casabiancas’
In his exquisite travelogue “Chasing the Monsoon”, Alexander Frater weaves a intriguing tale of the journey of our rains. As the clouds get down south, along with the subcontinent’s farmers, there is a further local community gearing up.
In about two lakh branches of banking companies, RRBs and agricultural cooperatives in rural/ semi-city India, staff members now obtain applications, method paper and disburse cash to crores of Little and Marginal (SM) farmers, renewing their crop financial loans. Some are specified new financial loans. These farmers personal much less than five acres of lands.
It is a huge seasonal training which goes primarily unsung, unhonoured. The borrower can take on an average much less than ₹1 lakh. In the metropolitan areas, no person would give a banker a 2nd appear for that sum. But this amount of money is the distinction involving a livelihood and not owning a single for farmers.
The financial loans specified for crop cultivation, popularly recognised as Kisan Credit score Card (KCC) financial loans, sustain India’s foods grains creation and a bulk of them are specified in Kharif. At previous depend, the KCC financial loans aggregated about ₹7 lakh-crore, specified to practically as many farmers. Out of our fourteen crore farmers, 85 for every cent are SM. A pair of crores until much less than this dimension. No financial loan reaches them due to the fact they are lessee/tenant/share-croppers.
SM farmers
The SM farmers are extra entrepreneurial than other business owners and give “margin” or personal contribution for financial loans – their land which they keep expensive, appear significant drinking water or total drought. This should be fantastic “collateral”. Bankers should know. In Kharif, paddy, soya bean, cotton, sugarcane and pulses are their favourites. Banking companies have to measure credit rating like fantastic previous “rations” of the Sixties. You do not have a Scale of Finance (SoF – denoting the amount of money of financial loan that can be specified for every acre) for any other form of financial loan. Some smart “babus” extended back made a decision this SoF has to be mounted by the District Degree Specialized Committee.
The SoF concept stays immutable. You can redefine God but not “SoF”. You may perhaps theoretically have about 730 “SoF” for, say, paddy due to the fact we have some 730 districts. Another person attempted to propose a topic like ‘One Nation, One Farmer, One Crop, One SoF’. Rational due to the fact the output price tag the Sarkaar pays is ‘One Nation, One Commodity, One Price’. But those people who know much better are nonetheless to acknowledge this logic.
Until the harvest is taken, the rains by themselves can be a spoilsport. If the crop survives, then will come the current market price tag which could be like a yo-yo. Besides for paddy, where procurement at MSP will work. Then, the farmer goes back again with the funds to repay equally principal and fascination to renew his financial loan for his following crop. Generally this is funds. Electronic is nonetheless to be the norm. The cycle carries on. The federal government presents fascination subsidy of two for every cent. Furthermore 3 for every cent for those people who repay promptly.
But Covid surge two., has created the little and marginal farmer extra vulnerable. Previous 12 months, he observed to it that his segment stands out, earning for a constructive accretion to nationwide profits. They then are the “Covid Casabiancas”. This time, industry reviews are negative owing to the 2nd wave. Even for the hardened son of the soil, this blow is a minor much too challenging. Can governor Shaktikanta Das, whose ‘radical empathy’ is self-apparent, spare a considered for the SM farmer good deal borrowing up to ₹3 lakh? Purely as a a single-time measure, up to March 31, 2022, inform banking companies that if fascination by itself is serviced, farmers want not be dealt with defaulters? We owe it to our Anna Daataas in this Covid-Kharif.
(The writer is leading general public sector bank executive. Sights are personalized)