We all have heard that a friend in need is a friend indeed. This proverb actually suits on DCB bank, A farmer’s friend. It not only provides kisan credit cards or various loans but it also plays an important role in a farmers lives. Being a guide, it not only fulfills farmer’s need but also make them aware about the different schemes run by the government. DCB Bank Limited is a modern emerging new generation private sector bank with 176 branches across 17 states and 2 union territories. It is professionally managed and governed. DCB Bank has comprehensive range of products and services, contemporary technology and infrastructure including state of the art internet and mobile banking. It is a Scheduled Commercial Bank regulated by the Reserve Bank of India. To know more about the function of a bank, Krishi Jagran team exclusively has an interaction with DCB Bank’s Head for Agri& Inclusive Banking Head, Mr. Narendra Nath Mishra. He put emphasis on farmers to take benefit from various schemes running by the government.
Tell us something about the bank policies and agri products which you are selling to the farmers and agri sector through your bank?
DCB Bank provides farmers various products. We provide farmers farm equipment loans which is basically a tractor loan, harvester loan. DCB Bank also provides kisan credit cards, loans for hi-tech agriculture. We provide loan to farmers which is against gold ornaments. If the farmers want to build houses so we provide home loans also. So, basically the range of products which will be related to farming needs which is currently available.
How many states DCB Bank is covering?
DCB Bank branches are present in17 states and would be adding more states and more branches in existing states too.
What is the procedure for tractor loan?
For tractor loan, DCB Bank has executives to interact with customers and dtractor dealers. We have tie-ups with most the manufacturers of the country and the customers can directly apply and also our executives go to the villages and enquire who is interested in buying tractors and dealers also refers the cases to us if a person comes to them to buy a tractor.
What is your bank’s interest rate? Is it similar to all the other nationalised bank’s interest rate or is there something different policy?
It depends on the nature of customers, security offered, the amount of funding. DCB Bank’s interest rate pricing is competitive in the market.
Do you mortgage land for giving tractor loan?
DCB BankTractor Loans almost 99% of funding is without hypothetication of land.Around 1% of farmers have mortgage because mortgage requires more time. Mortgage of land involves a lot many procedures The customer has to submit land papers to the Bank, we have to undertake legal scrutiny of land records, and then inform the Government department under mortgage processUsually the famer may not have all that much time on hand while puirchasing tractors. The customer now-a-days wants faster processess. DCB Bank understands that requirement and therefore suggests appropriate Loan solution for customers based on their requirement
Which are the major companies your bank is dealing with?
The Bank provides tractor loanfor all major tractor manufacturing companies such as Mahindra and Mahindra, TAFE, ITL, New Holland, Kubota, Mitsubishi, Escorts, amongst others.
Are you providing loans on implements?
Yes, DCB Bank does provide loan forpurchase of implements as for those attached with tractors. We also provide harvester loans.
Are you also providing loans in post-harvesting machinery?
DCB Bank has a product specifically to finance warehouses, sorting, grading machines and other storage infrastructure.
What about the land levellers?
At the moment we don’t have got much demand for land leveller machinery.If the DCB Bank customer is a farmer who wants a land leveller we’ll work it out for customer, provided the customer is eligible for a loan.
It’s a customer hire services now-a-days because people are taking it to farm basically those are farmers only but at the same time they are levelling their land and neighbours land also? What do you think about that?
It is the customer’s choice on how they want to utilise their machinery.
Are you getting any kind of government support to sell these kind of policies and services on the discounted pattern?
There are few State Governments provide subsidies such as the Government of Odisha. It provides subsidy for agri machinery such as harvesters andtractors. If there is any subsidy programme of theGovernment,we make our customers aware about it. So, customers havea choice whether they want to go through a subsidy programme and fulfill all the subsidy norms also.
Is it possible for farmers to have two loans at a time?
Yes it is possible. Infact some of the farmers are taking both loans that is for crop and for implements/tractors as well.
Which is your customised loan for a croping pattern?
DCB Tractor Loan is our customised loan for a croping pattern. It can be annual or it can be six monthly also. Customer can choose to give higher EMI’s in the beginning and lower EMI’s in the end. So it is very flexible for the customer. There are farmers who are doing vegetable farming and want monthly EMI’s and also there are customers want to pay once in a year because they have one crop in a year . Customers having 2 crops (Rabi and Kharif), want to pay half yearly. We go by cashflow method and customer convinence.
Are you associated with NHB scheme?
NHB/NHM provides subsidy to farmer customer for sepcific puprose and and customers can avial such facilities through our bank in accordance with NHB/NHM policy.
Any thing you would like to suggest to the farmers?
The critical thing is crop protection. The farmers who are growing high intensive crops like paddy, sugarcane, which consumes higher water, takes higher nutirents from soil and decrease productivity. If we can have 1 cereal and one pulse/oilseed crop alternately depending on the geographical conditions the soil health and water table would improve. Secondly, my suggestion to the farmers is that Pradhan Mantri Crop Insurance Scheme is an improvement over the previous crop insurance scheme. The premiums have been reduced, simplified, the compensation amount has also been increased; therefore, every farmer should take crop insurance under the scheme. Even if they donot take a loan they can still take crop insurance. So, now that the norms are liberalised and very helpful for the farmers they should take benefit from this.