33 Candidates in Fray for Three Seats in State By-elections

From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Mar 26: As many as 33 candidates have remained in the fray for the three by-elections of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly Constituencies being held on April 9.

With Saturday March 26, being the last day for withdrawal of nominations, a total 36 nominations were withdrawn in Channapatna, Jagalur and Bangarpet constituencies.

A total of 15 candidates remained in the fray in Channapatna, eight in Jagalur and 10 in Bangarpet constituencies.

C P Yogeshwar from BJP, Raghunandana Ramanna of Congress and S L Nagaraj of JD(S) are in the fray in Channapatna.

S V Ramachandra of BJP, Devendrappa of Congress and H Manjunath of JD(S) remained in the fray in Jagalur (ST) constituency.

BJP candidate M Narayanaswamy, K M Narayanaswamy of the Congress and C Venkateshappa of the JD (S) are contesting in Bangarpet (Scheduled Castes) constituency.

1% rate of interest on cooperative farm loans from April 1

Cooperative societies will be charge 1 % rate of interest on old crop loans whose repayment term expires from April 1 along with fresh crop loans.

A cooperative society would charge rate of interest of 1 % on crop loan borrowed by a sugarcane grower in December, 2010, since the repayment period existed till December 2011.

However, the cooperative society would charge 3 % rate of interest till March 2011, and 1 % rate of interest after April 1, 2011, said Minister for cooperatives Laxman S Savadi.

The state government had announced that it would give crop loans at 1 % interest rate through cooperative credit institutions in the ensuing fiscal 2011-12.

A government order to issue crop loans at 1 % rate of interest would be issued on April 10, 2011, he said.

The cooperative societies would charge 1 % rate of interest up to a loan up to Rs 3 lakh and charge commercial rate of interest for loan amount above Rs 3 lakh, the Minister said.

The cooperative institutions in the state had disbursed Rs 3671 crore crop loans to 11 lakh farming families up to February 2011 (2010-11).

The recovery rate is more than 90%, which is quite impressive considering the overall crisis facing the agriculture sector, he said.

For encouraging farmers to become members of cooperatives, instructions have been given to cooperatives to disburse 90 % of fresh loans to new members and the rest to old members.

Based on the recommendations of the Vaidyanathan panel report, a sum of Rs 406 crore had been released to cooperatives for strengthening them.

Another amount of Rs 350 crore would be released soon for making cooperatives financially viable, Savadi said.