From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Sep 18: The spate suicides by farmers and the severe drought conditions in Karnataka is a matter of grave concern was the opinion of most of the Bankers, who attended the State-level Bankers Committee meeting in Bengaluru on Friday.

They said there was slow disbursement of credit to agriculture owing to drought in as many as 136 taluks in the State.

Different nationalised commercial banks have disbursed to barely 19.86 per cent (Rs 22,331 crore) of the annual lending target of Rs 1.12 lakh crore agriculture and allied activities (priority sector) in the first quarter of this fiscal year.

“The reason for low disbursements is due to widespread drought situation prevailing in the State,” said Arun Shrivastava, Managing Director and CEO of Syndicate Bank and Chairman of the State-Level Bankers Committee (SLBC).

Over 300 farmers ended lives in the State in last few months, he said expressing serious concern over the situation.

Regional officers of NABARD and RBI, who attended the meeting, said loss of crops was the major reason for farmers’ suicide.

M I Ganagi, Chief General Manager of NABARD, said increased debt burden, increased education and health costs, harassment by moneylenders are the major factors for suicides.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who addressed the meeting, expressed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of lending to agriculture and other sectors by public sector banks.

The average size of loan per farmer has been around Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000, “which is very low,” Siddaramaiah said.

The Chief Minister advised the bankers to formulate a creative annual credit plan facilitating investment in hi-tech agriculture.

Bankers should think of paradigm shift in their approach to agriculture to reduce dependence on monsoon, he said.

In a veiled attack at the bankers for slow disbursements, he said banks need to become more pro-active in releasing the full quantum of loans which was not being done in spite of subsidy and margin money being released by the government.

“The credit-deposit (CD) ratio of the State is remaining static continuously. CD ratio was 73 per cent to 76 per cent,” he said.

“I find that more than 25 banks’ CD ratio is less than the State average, which is quite discouraging,’’ he said adding that CD ratio in the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada was much lower, ranging from 36 per cent to 52 per cent.