Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jun 17: The farmers have been able to get short term farm loans up to Rs three lac at zero percent interest. However, the government has given rise to a new worry among the farming community by posing new conditions for availing these loans, at a time when the farmers are already wilting under the weight of losses caused by lockdown.

The government has imposed some new conditions for the farmers to be able to raise loans at nil rate of interest. These conditions will deprive most of the farmers in the state of the zero percent loan facility.

In many villages, the concept of joint family persists now even in cases where the land is held in different names. These people, in spite of fulfilling the eligibility conditions like being poor and being eligible for the loan, will not get a loan at zero percent henceforth.

The government, through credit cooperative societies, has been providing loans at zero percent interest to farmers up to three lac rupees by way of short term loans from the year 2004.This loan is meant to meet annual agricultural operations. Now, the department of cooperation has issued an order. If the farmers are not able to fulfill any one of these conditions, they will have to pay seven percent interest on agricultural loans.

The conditions imposed are that under the said scheme, for short term operations, a family will get a maximum of three lac rupees. Secondly, those farmers who have been drawing monthly salary or pension of over Rs 20,000 per month, or those who have paid income tax during the last three years, will not get the interest incentive (0 percent interest facility).

These conditions apply to the entire state and thousands of farmers will be deprived of the facility. In undivided Dakshina Kannada district, 23,044 farmers will become ineligible for the said zero percent loan. They will be deprived of Rs 354.91 crore loan which they would otherwise have got without interest. Out of the above, there are 8,216 farmers in Udupi and 14,828 in Dakshina Kannada.

Puttur MLA Sanjeeva Matandoor, said that the minister for cooperation, Somashekhar, has been requested not to impose new conditions for short term loans carrying zero percent interest. He said that the minister has also been prevailed upon to take steps to withdraw the conditions.