Public sector banks to provide loans to farmers at 7 per cent

Phagwara, Nov 21 (UNI) The public sector banks in Punjab today decided to provide production loans (agri loans) of up to Rs three lakh at seven per cent interest rate to the farmers.

The bankers have also decided to gear up their credit delivery mechanism in rural areas of the state. This was decided at the 97 th State Level Bankers Committee meeting held here today.

During the meeting, the bankers admitted that agri-clinics and agri-business in the state was not doing well and it was decided that providing easy loans to the farmers could give a fillip-in to the agricultural sector.

While addressing the meeting, Punjab National Bank Executive Director K Raghuraman called upon the bankers to lay emphasis on the rural and farm sector. For this, he said the banks have plans to double the credits by the end of this fiscal year for the rural areas.

It was suggested during the meeting that to boost agriculture advances, banks should popularise Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme.

The bankers also suggested that banks should double the credit to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in five years.

Mr V K Nagar, General Manager, PNB, Mr S R Aluru, Chief General Manager of NABARD and senior officers of the state government were among those who attended the meeting.

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