Probe Rs 17k cr excess crop loans: Punjab

Chandigarh : The Punjab Government has asked the Union Ministry of Finance to probe how private banks advanced excess agricultural loans (crop loans) worth Rs 17,600 crore to state farmers. This loan amount is more than the actual value of crops sold each year. While 30 per cent of marginal farmers (1.46 lakh of 5.71 lakh) have received Rs 7,097.46 crore — each getting a loan of over Rs 2 lakh, the total crop loan given to marginal farmers is Rs 9,845.09 crore. While 1.11 lakh farmers got loans ranging between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, totalling Rs 3,189 crore, 35,877 farmers got loans over Rs 5 lakh. The rules say the maximum crop loan — the working capital limit for a crop season — that a farmer can get is Rs 40,000 per acre. By this standard, the maximum loan that a marginal farmer, who owns under 2.5 acres, can get is Rs 1 lakh, while the maximum crop loan that a small farmer, who owns 2.5 to 5 acres, can receive is Rs 1.80 lakh. As many as 2.94 lakh farmers have got crop loans between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh each, while 70,893 farmers have got crop loans of over Rs 5 lakh. This has raised suspicion on how money has been lent to farmers without enough landholding. Most of these advances have been given by private banks, which in a bid to meet the priority sector lending norms have allegedly flouted rules and increased the loan extended to farmers, otherwise ineligible for such high loans.