Thiruvananthapuram: The moratorium on agriculture loans,which ended on July 31, will be extended till December 31.
The decision was taken by a high-level meet convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan which was attended by representatives of banks here on Wednesday.
The meeting took place in the wake of Reserve Bank of India communicating to its regional office that SLBC could take a decision on state government's request to extend the moratorium till December 31.
Agriculture minister V.S. Sunil Kumar said the decision taken at the meeting would cover farmers whose loans had not been rescheduled. The banks will not be able to initiate recovery proceedings against defaulters without the consent of district level subcommittees which had been constituted jointly by the SLBC and Agriculture Department.
At present the subcommittees are functioning in Idukki and Wayanad districts. These would be constituted in other districts within a week.
The SLBC on the direction of state government had written to RBI seeking special permission to extend the moratorium. The chief minister's letter on the matter was also personally handed over to RBI governor Shaktikanta Das and deputy governor Narendra Jain who deals with moratorium issues.
Due to the crash in prices following the huge destruction caused by devastating floods last year, farmers of high range district have not been able to resume agriculture activities and repay the agricultural and non agricultural loans. This has landed them in deep crisis. The worst affected are farmers of Idukki and Wayanad districts. In spite of the moratorium announced by the government, banks are issuing recovery notices to farmers.
