Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has faulted banks for misclassifying all sorts of loans under the agricultural sector to rea-ch the mandated 18 per cent of its credit to the sector.
TRS politburo member and MP B. Vinod Kumar, in a letter to Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, said Telangana government noticed this when it asked the SLBC to furnish details of crop loans given to farmers in the state as on March 31, 2014, total outstanding crop loans to farmers among other details, to assess the state government’s liability with regard to the proposed loan waiver scheme. “SLBC did not have readymade data though the banks are computerised under CBS and they took a long time to compile the data. Even this data furnished by SLBC was at variance with the ground level situation assessed by the government of Telan-gana. There is huge variance with the number of accounts and the total amount,” Mr Vinod said.
Though SLBC furnished a total outstanding to the agriculture sector in Telangana as Rs 49,564 crore, the outstanding agricultural crop loans to individual farmers was shown as Rs 12,000 crore for the purpose of the loan waiver scheme.
"I feel the Centre should get the facts right and should call for the break-up of the total loans given to the agricultural sector and the crop loans given to individual farmers under agricultural crop loans from Reserve Bank of India every year," he added.
In the budget the Centre fixed a target of Rs 8,00,000 crore towards agricultural credit by the banking sector for the financial year 2014-15.
Agriculture credit consists of crop loans, term loans given to individual farmers and loans given to agri-processing units and other indirect finance to institutions.
Some banks are classifying gold loans given to individuals in rural and semi-urban branches under Agricultural Crop Loans.
Mr Vinod Kumar urged the Finance Minister to furnish information on the total Agriculture Credit given by banks and agricultural crop loans given to farmers by banks in the country as on March 31, 2014 so that a realistic assessment/review can be made of the gaps in Agricultural Credit to farmers in Parliament through a separate discussion.
