Bankers reject Chandrababu Naidu’s proposal

Hyderabad: The request of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to the State Level Bankers Committee on Monday to reschedule the crop loans up to seven years with a moratorium of one year and disburse fresh kharif loans was rejected by the bankers.

Mr Naidu’s plea that the farmers were entitled to rescheduling of loans as per RBI rules, as most of them were affected by drought and cyclones, failed to cut ice with the bankers.
He said out of 661 mandals in Seemandhra, 113 mandals were affected by drought and 462 by cyclones and heavy rains last year.

The bankers said though a report on drought and cyclone affected mandals should have been submitted within 90 days after the government declares it, the government failed to do it. The bankers expressed their inability to reschedule loans under drought and cyclone-hit clause.

Though Mr Naidu appealed to the bankers that they should not go into the technicalities as the report could not be submitted due to agitations in favour and against bifurcation of the state, followed by Governor’s rule and elections and the bifurcation, the bankers said they cannot reschedule loans until specific directions are given by the RBI. The CM sought to buy more time from the bankers by assuring them that the AP government will soon come out with a concrete plan to repay the rescheduled loans.

Mr Naidu requested the bankers not to exert pressure on the farmers for repayment, but offer suggestions on giving fresh loans for kharif in the current year. “Farmers are waiting for monsoon to arrive to commence agriculture operations and they need fresh loans,” he said. The CM assured farmers that they needn’t fear about waiver of their loans. Making it clear that the TD government was committed to waive off loans, he said that the scheme would cover farm, gold, DWCRA (SHGs), weavers and artisans to name a few.

Mr Naidu took pains to explain to bankers that he had promised loan waiver seeing their pathetic state of affairs during his padayatras. “Farmers had reached the stage of committing suicide. The farm loan waiver promise is to help farmers suffering from untimely rains and lack of remunerative prices, and is not intended to inconvenience bankers,” he said.

Meanwhile, SLBC president and chairman and managing director of Andhra Bank, Mr C.V.R Rajendran said that crop loan disbursements during the current season has almost come to a halt as banks were unable to recycle the funds owing to non-repayment of loans and mounting over dues.

The slippages of April loans into NPAs are on a very high side resulting in higher provisioning, ultimately affecting the credit rating of the banks, he said.

"The need of the hour is to bring clarity on the proposed debt waiver with due publicity...I also request the government to put in place an effective and undisputable recovery mechanism which can tackle the issue effectively," he said.

He added that the total priority sector advances in the state stood at Rs 1,37,250 crore as on March 2014 out of which agricultural advances were Rs 87,612 crore, as per SLBC data.

Later, the Chief Minister formally launched the state credit plan for the year 2014-15. The total outlay of the plan was pegged at Rs 91,459 crore out of which Rs 56,019 crore was earmarked for agriculture.