From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Feb 27: Bankers should be more attuned to the needs of farmers and be more courteous, accommodative and should never insist on original Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC) for sanctioning bank loans, said a senior official of the State Government.

Addressing the annual State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) in Bangalore on Monday, Karnataka Government’s Revenue Department Secretary (Bhoomi project) Rajeev Chawla said the Department has computerised 20 million records of land ownership of 6.7 million farmers in the State.

Instead of asking farmers to bring RTC papers, bankers could download records from the Bhoomi website and take printouts and thereby serve farming community better, he said.

He said Union Government’s Finance Department has suggested the implementation of the Bhoomi-Bank integration project in the State.

Training for the purpose of downloading the land records and on-line registration of charge has to be organised to all branch level officers of banks at the district level, he said.

A few districts would be chosen on a pilot basis for implementation of the Bhoomi-Bank integration project to ensure cent per cent performance.

Learning from the experience could be replicated in other districts over a period of time, he said.

Chairman and Managing Director of Syndicate Bank and SLBC Chairman Basant Seth requested the Government to issue a gazette notification authorising bankers to download the RTCs from Bhoomi website from a legal point view.

He also endorsed the suggestion of the Revenue Department’s Secretary that bankers not to insist on original RTC from farmers..

But he wanted the State Government to bring out a official gazette notification to remove any ambiguity

The SLBC Chairman said under agriculture sector, banks have disbursed Rs. 21709 crore upto December 2011 against the revised annual target of Rs. 31380 crore, recording 69 per cent achievement.

Seth said the State has provided banking outlets in all the identified 3395 unbanked villages of over 2000 population, thereby accounting for 100 per cent coverage ahead of the targeted date of March 2012.

Karnataka Government’s Chief Secretary S V Ranganath said the percentage of agricultural advances to total advances declined from 20.10 in December 2009 to 18.5 in December 2011.

There was a need to increase lending to the farm sector to sustain 6 per cent growth rate. The growth rate in the 11th Five Year Plan was 5.8 per cent in the State, he added.