Finance Minister inquires DFS report on gap between sanctioned, disbursal of agri loans

Calling for full automation of regional rural banks and cooperative banks and directing the Department of Financial Services to study the gap between loan sanction and loan disbursement for these banks, the union minister, said, "What interested me is that the sanction versus disclosed amounts vary significantly. It was a very interesting correlation or call it an absence of correlation that when the scheduled commercial banks lent they seemed to factionless what seemed to disperse better, whereas in the cooperative sector, the sanction is higher, but they don't get to see as much disbursal.

The union minister was addressing a gathering after the launch of the Kisan Rin Portal and Ghar Ghar KCC Abhiyan by the Agriculture Ministry.

She also assured the full cooperation of banks for the success of Ghar Ghar KCC Abhiyan.

"Money is not an issue. Regional Rural Banks and Cooperative Banks have to be very active. There is still a lot of work to do in digitising cooperative banks and Regional Rural banks," she said.

She further said that the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has allocated enough money under the KCC scheme to ensure easy short-term loans to farmers and their onboarding for the scheme.

The finance minister commended the Ministry of Agriculture for its initiatives and successful implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana .

She said that over 1,40,000 crores of insurance amount has been disbursed to farmers so far against a premium amount of Rs. 29,000 crore.

She also appreciated real-time estimation for rice and wheat crop output and called for the estimation to be extended to Dalhan and Tilhan crops so that better planning can be done for their imports if needed. The finance minister said that real-time estimation of crops will help the economy and ensure the right prices for farmers at the end of the crop season.

Further, Sitharaman said that India owes great indebtedness to the farmers for the way they stood up during COVID-19.

"Even during the lockdown, it was the rural India, the farming India, and the Kisan India that kept us going. Farmers took the minimum safeguards as they should have and ensured food security in the country," she added.