Protests of Kisan Union at cooperative banks termed ‘Anti-Farmer’

Kisan Union must desist from harming farmers’ interests to further its narrow political interests: Cooperation Department

5 Dariya News

Chandigarh 04-Jan-2019

“The Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) is inciting farmers to stage protests at the Primary Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank (PADB) to not repay the loans taken and is vitiating the atmosphere of the state besides leading to the situation where the services being made available to the farmers and other members of general public are being negatively affected. The protests being staged on the instigation of the opposition parties are part of a well planned conspiracy because in case of the failure of PADB to deposit the installment the aid from NABARD would be stopped which would harm the interests of farmers only.”The Cooperation Department in a statement here today said that the PADBs advances long term loans to the farmers in the state and these loans are re-financed by the NABARD. The farmers repay the loans of PADBs in installments and similarly the PADBs too had to return loan to NABARD in a timely manner in installments. The PADBs till now have never defaulted on the repayment of NABARD loan installment in a timely manner and if PADBs are unable to do so in future then it would result in the stopping of re-financing from NABARD. This would take the things to such a sorry pass where the PADBs would be unable to provide loans to farmers in future which would put the needy farmers in jeopardy.The spokesman further said that the installment payable by the PADBs to the NABARD and other institutions till January, 2019 stands at Rs. 450 crore approximately whereas the recovery by PADBs has only been to the tune of Rs. 295 crore which is a meager 15.64 percent of the total Rs. 1886.71 crore.

The PADBs recover the amount primarily by making the farmers aware and no farmer is harassed but there are several farmers who despite being capable of repaying do not repay the loans and the PADBs had to resort to action against such farmers.Disclosing more, the spokesman said that the Kisan Unions are misleading the farmers to not repay the loans which is against the interests of the farmers. That explains why the government is already promulgating in the interests of the farmers. The government has already given debt relief in respect of crop loans to the tune of Rs. 3500 crore to the 4.17 lakh farmers and sooner the process would be initiated to extend this relief to the small farmers too. The government would be forced to take recourse to strict action in case the Kisan Union supported agitations turn nasty.The Cooperation Department appeals to all the farmers to return the loans taken from the PADBs so as to ensure that the functioning of the banks continues without any hindrances. So, the protests at the PADBs need to be stopped without any delay thereby ensuring that there is no negative effect on the working of the banks which in turn would enable them to return the installments of NABARD in time after recovering the same from the farmers thus leading to smooth functioning of the banks.