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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Tamil Nadu: Lion's share of bank loans against gold, villages fall prey to loan sharks -Arun Janardhanan

Tamil Nadu: Lion's share of bank loans against gold, villages fall prey to loan sharks -Arun Janardhanan

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published Published on Mar 24, 2017   modified Modified on Mar 24, 2017
-The Indian Express

Census data of 2011 shows a 17.74 per cent increase in worker population since 2001, indicating a crucial shift from farms as productivity fell.

Thiruvarur:
B CHANDIRAN is the only male member below the age of 50 in Dalit-dominated Oradiymbalam Jeeva Nagar village in Nagapattinam district. Hunted by loan sharks, the other men in this village of over 60 families have left, and are now doing menial jobs in cities. Chandiran, battling crop failures for the past three years, isn’t sure how long he can stay behind.

S Mariappan, 63, laughs at their plight. Pointing out that villagers like him are easy targets for moneylenders as banks demands a gold guarantee, he says, “Many of our women have never owned jewellery.”

The inability of banks to come to the help of Tamil Nadu farmers as they battle two failed monsoons is clear from the agriculture loan portfolios of leading banks, including State Bank of India (SBI), over the last five years.

While the agriculture portfolio of SBI grew from Rs 8,510 crore in March 2011 to Rs 18,528 crore in March 2015, the entire growth has been on account of agriculture gold loans, for which banks take gold guarantees, rather than through core agriculture business loans, disbursed through Kisan Credit cards — as per a public paper prepared by a state-level bankers’ committee.

With 4,408 ATMs and 1,032 branches, SBI is the largest bank in Tamil Nadu.

Banks prefer gold loans as there is some surety in the form of gold. Agriculture business loans include both direct agriculture loans and loans for allied agriculture sectors such as processing or to purchase water bottling equipments or create storage facilities.

The same holds true for all major banks. SBI Chief General Manager, Tamil Nadu region, Ramesh Babu did not respond to queries sent by The Indian Express.

Quoting the RBI’s Basic Statistical Returns (BSR) data, D Thomas Franco, the leader of the All India Bank Officers Confederation, India’s largest bank officers’ body, says that as of March 15, of the total bank credits, the under-Rs 25,000 loans made up just 0.5 per cent and loans below Rs 2 lakh only 7.7 per cent. “Whereas, 11,000 borrowers have got 31.5 per cent of the total loans in India,” he says, slamming the disparity in the loan system.

S Nagoor Ali Jinnah, Chief General Manager of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), agrees with Franco that a target should be set by the RBI for core agri business loans. “These are the actual agriculture loans that reach farmers,” Franco says.

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The Indian Express, 23 March, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/tamil-nadu-tragedy-farmer-suicide-lions-share-of-bank-loans-against-gold-villages-fall-prey-to-loan-sharks-4581280/


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