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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Agriculture finance: Post-demonetisation, cooperative banks in Maharashtra fail to disburse kharif crop loans to farmers -Partha Sarathi Biswas

Agriculture finance: Post-demonetisation, cooperative banks in Maharashtra fail to disburse kharif crop loans to farmers -Partha Sarathi Biswas

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published Published on Jun 30, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 30, 2017
-The Indian Express

First, it was demonetisation and crop price crash; now it is the collapse of cooperative credit that is hurting farmers during peak kharif operations. For most Maharashtra farmers, drying up of institutional finance for kharif farming operations is what’s really hurting.

Nashik (Maharashtra):
Last kharif, the Nashik District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB) disbursed  Rs 1,608.55 crore of crop loans during April-June, exceeding its target of Rs 1,257.18 crore. This season, however, it has given out a mere Rs 61.41 crore as on June 27, way below even a lower target of Rs 1,101.05 crore.

NDCCB could be an extreme case of a beleaguered cooperative bank. But across Maharashtra, total kharif crop loan disbursements by DCCBs have been just Rs 5,707.42 crore from April to June 27 this year. That is barely 55 per cent of the Rs 10,451.77 crore lent out during April-June 2016.

The above collapse of cooperative credit is an ongoing story of Maharashtra’s agriculture, at a time when waiver of past loans is what’s grabbing the headlines. And its effects are being felt right now in the fields, as kharif agricultural operations gather pace with the state receiving 13 per cent above-normal monsoon rains so far.

For Santosh Garade, between May and the month almost ending, there should have been at least four rounds of pruning (removal of thread-like tendrils growing from the main branches) at his four-acre vineyard. But this grape farmer from Takli village in Nashik district’s Niphad taluka hasn’t managed to do a single pruning — necessary for the crop’s proper flowering from September-October, followed by fruit development and harvesting towards February-March.

“My total investment requirement during May-July, for six rounds of pruning along with application of fertiliser, fungicide and micronutrients, is about Rs 50,000 per acre. I am unable to raise that working capital today from either NDCCB or Bank of Maharashtra. And I have no money of my own left,” says Gorade.

The 34-year-old suffered huge losses from his 2016-17 grape and onion crops grown on four acres and two acres, respectively. The 70-quintals average yield from onions, which fetched Rs 300 per quintal, did not cover his cultivation cost of Rs 35,000 per acre. Gorade’s vineyard, likewise, yielded 60 quintals of grapes per acre. At Rs 15/kg, there was no way his investment of Rs 2 lakh per acre could even be recovered, leave alone generate a return.

The credit crunch that farmers like Gorade are experiencing — that too, in what looks to be a good monsoon year — comes even as the Maharashtra government has come out with a Rs 34,022-crore loan waiver scheme. The Devendra Fadnavis administration’s decision to waive individual farm loans of up to Rs 1.5 lakh taken from cooperative and commercial banks — plus the direction given to extend Rs 10,000 in cash as an immediate advance — does not radically alter the picture.

“The loan waiver is of no use to me, as I have outstanding dues of Rs 4 lakh with the Bank of Maharashtra,” notes Gorade. Nor does a Rs 10,000 cash loan help somebody growing a crop entailing much more investment than bajra (pearl millet) or soyabean. Gorade is, moreover, not eligible to receive this special loan, since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is yet to give the nod for extending it to defaulting farmers.

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The Indian Express, 29 June, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/maharashtra-farmers-agriculture-finance-demonetisation-when-lending-stops-ndccb-4726872/


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