A meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare was held on 23rd March, 2022. The Committee discussed various aspects of the Kisan Credit Card Scheme for improvement and better implementation.
Addressing the committee, Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomar said that the government is running a campaign for saturation of KCC to farmers to cover all leftover PM KISAN beneficiaries. He said that all the administrative charges up to Rs. 3 lakh of short term loans i.e processing fee, inspection fee, ledger, folio charges etc have been waived off so that maximum number of farmers can get the loan at a cheaper rate through the Interest Subvention Scheme.
The Minister also told the Committee members that the form for KCC has been simplified and directions have been sent to banks to issue KCC within 14 days of receipt of the complete application form. As a result of sustained and concerted efforts by banks and other stakeholders in the direction of providing access to concessional credit to farmers, a major milestone has been achieved by covering around 2.94 crore farmers under the KCC scheme with the sanctioned credit limit of Rs. 3.22 lakh crore as on 4th March, 2022, the Minister added.
A presentation on details of KCC scheme was given by Joint Secretary Shri Ritesh Chauhan.
The committee members raised their concerns and gave suggestions for further improvement of the scheme. Shri Tomar thanked the committee members for their valuable suggestions and assured them that the Ministry will look into each suggestion and will come out with favourable solutions for the betterment of farmers. He also requested members to put their efforts into creating awareness about KCC among the farmer community in their respective constituencies.
About Kisan Credit Card
Kisan Credit Card was introduced in 1998 to provide short term loans to farmers to purchase agriculture inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides etc. Presently, KCC loans are available to farmers engaged in crop husbandry, Animal Husbandry and other allied activities for both the short term and long term. The maximum limit for a short term agriculture loan is up to 1 year and for a long term loan normally 5 years. Banks at their discretion may extend the tenure. The government of India is implementing an Interest Subvention Scheme for short term crop loans through KCC, under which, short term loans up to Rs. 3 lakhs are given to the farmers at concessional rate of 7% and additional 3% Prompt Repayment Incentive (PRI) makes the effective rate of interest at 4%.
The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Kailash Chaoudhary, Members of Lok Sabha Shri Bellana Chandrasekar, Shri Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Smt. Jaskaur Meena, Shri Mahendra Singh Solanky, Shri Pradeep Kumar Chaudhary, Smt. Rama Devi, Shri Rodmal Nagar and Shri Shriniwas Dadasaheb Patil, Members of Rajya Sabha Smt. Geeta alias Chandraprabha and Shri Ram Shakal.
Shri Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare along with the senior officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying were also present during the meeting.