Public sector banks in Maharashtra seemed to have gone against the directives and repeated warnings by the government of Maharashtra to grant crop loans to farmers. Now, state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has sent a communique to the Finance Ministry seeking its intervention in the matter.
The state government has threatened to remove its deposits in these banks unless they fulfil their commitment to achieving their loan disbursal. The banks across Maharashtra have disbursed crop loans worth Rs. 16,000 crore by the start of August 2018. Out of this, the share of loans proceeded by the nationalised banks was a meagre 8 percent.
Comparatively, the loan disbursed by the District Co-operative Central Banks (DCCBs) and Regional Rural Co-operative Banks stood at 63 percent and 29 percent respectively. The state government has decided to allocate the crops loans to the public sector banks along with co-operative banks and regional rural co-operative banks for its disbursal.
The Maharashtra government had announced a loan waiver of R. 34,000 crore in June which was expected to help 89 lakh farmers in debt across the state.
The Department of Cooperation has expressed its displeasure over the fact that the public sector banks have not even complied with the 10 percent priority lending or crop loan targets set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
In the current year, the state government had set a farm loan target of approximately Rs 43,731 crore with --public sector banks, district central cooperative banks and regional rural cooperative banks -- been given the responsibility to disburse these loans. Shockingly, only DCCBs have managed to achieve their target, reports Financial Express.
Recently, Maharastra CM Fadnavis announced that the loan disbursement for the Kharif season has achieved only a 25 per cent of the set target. He had also reiterated that the state government is taking all possible efforts to speed up the loan disbursal process. In that direction, the CM has also written a letter to the acting Finance Minister Piyush Goyal requesting him to direct the public sector banks to pace up the process.
