Banks Start Campaign to Increase Kisan Credit Card Loans

Banks have started a Kisan Credit Card (KCC) saturation campaign with the support of respective State-Level Bankers’ Committees (SLBCs) & District-Level Bankers’ Committees (DLBCs) for giving Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans to farmers who have not been given such loans. The scheme will enable farmers buy seeds and fertilizers, and draw cash for their agri needs.

The scheme comes with an ATM-enabled RuPay debit card with facilities for one-time documentation, built-in cost escalation in the limit, and any number of withdrawals within the limit, among others.

The recent initiatives for KCC saturation include adding farmers engaged in animal husbandry and fisheries; removal of inspection ledger folio charges and processing fee of loan under KCC; and raising limit of collateral free agriculture loan from Rs. l lakh to Rs. 1.6 lakh.

Besides ensuring saturation, banks will also be taking steps to link Aadhaar immediately as no interest subvention will be given if the Aadhaar numbers are not seeded to KCC accounts. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, currently there are 6.92 crore live KCCs, against 14.5 crore operational landholdings.

In order to provide short-term crop loans up to Rs. 3 lakh to farmers at an interest rate of 7 per cent per annum, lending institutions – PSBs and private sector commercial banks (in respect of loans given by their rural and semi-urban branches only) – are offered interest subvention of 2 per cent by the government.

Further, an additional interest subvention of 3% per annum is provided to those farmers who repay in time. This also implies that farmers repaying promptly get short-term crop loans at 4 percent per annum.

This benefit will not accrue to those farmers who repay their crop loans after one year of availing such loans. State Bank of India, in a recent circular, said loan applications under KCC have to be disposed off in 14 days maximum.c