The Hindu

Mangalore, Jul 10: A total of 24,287 farmers in Dakshina Kannada district will benefit from the loan waiver scheme announced by the Centre in the Union Budget. This includes 20,626 small and marginal farmers, who will get relief amounting to Rs. 40.61 crore and 3,661 other farmers (Rs. 5.75 crore).

Disclosing this at the 131st district-level review committee meeting of bankers here on Wednesday, the manager of SyndicateBank, which is the Lead Bank in the district, Uday Kumar Holla, said the total relief under scheme is Rs. 46.36 crore. There are two parts to the scheme — debt relief and debt waiver. Mr. Holla said that farmers who were not covered under either of the packages would get 25 per cent of the amount in default, subject to the condition that they repaid the remaining amount in three instalments.

Deputy General Manager of SyndicateBank K.U. Shanbhag, while lauding the bankers for implementing the relief packages, said that lists of eligible beneficiaries had been displayed on notice boards at the bank branches. Banks had initiated a process of crediting the eligible amount of debt waiver to the loan account of farmers, he said and added that all banks had also appointed grievance redressal officers.

Stating that the contact number of these officers had also been displayed on the notice boards, Mr. Shanbhag pointed out that aggrieved farmers could present their grievances to the officer concerned and get a reply in 30 days. Observing that the scheme had its share of complexities, Mr. Shanbhag said the zeal shown by the managers of rural branches to successfully complete this time-bound exercise with their skeletal staff was laudable.

Mr. Holla said that 379 branches of 45 banks in the district had achieved a business of Rs. 17,173 crore as on March 2008.

This total business consisted of Rs. 10,495 crore deposits and Rs. 6,678 crore advances. The credit deposit ratio of the district was 63.6 per cent , above the Reserve Bank of India stipulated norm of 60 per cent.

Assistant General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, K.P. Udupa said the district had lived up to its reputation of being a “cradle of banking”. “No other district in the State had managed to cross the Rs. 10,000-crore deposit level or breach the Rs. 6,500-crore advances mark,” he said. The deposits and advances had shown year-on-year growth of 15.19 per cent and 16.6 per cent respectively, he said.

Regarding the district credit plan for 2007-08, Mr. Holla said banks had disbursed Rs. 2,427 crore against the annual target of Rs. 2,307 crore, achieving 105 per cent of the stipulated target. Banks would disburse Rs. 2,830.95 crore under the district credit plan during 2008-09, a growth of 22 per cent.

Increase in share of priority sector at Rs. 1,916.34 crore would be 19 per cent and non-priority sector at Rs. 914.61 crore which would be 31 per cent.