The Meghalaya government has notified an interest subvention of two per cent to standard of regular Kisan Credit Card (KCC) borrowers in the State.
Under this interest subvention scheme, the government will now repay two per cent of loans to farmers who are beneficiaries of KCC.
“Coupled with the three per cent interest subvention provided by the Government of India, the effective rate of interest for the standard KCC borrower in the State will now only be two per cent,” the notification said.
The Agriculture Department will be implementing the interest subvention scheme by creating a budget head and ensuring sufficient budget provision for the same.
Further, the Agriculture Department will issue specific guidelines and circular in consultation with the banks and Finance Department for implementation of the scheme.
For the current financial year, banks have been asked to submit the claims of eligible borrowers to the Agriculture Department by October 30 and the payment process is to be completed by November 30.
From the next financial year, all claims have to be submitted to the Agriculture Department by the end of May.
As of now, more than 1.6 lakh farmers in the state are registered under the Kisan Credit Card and around 19,000 of them have procured loans.
This move will have a financial implication of Rs 2.5 crore on the state government every year and it may further increase to Rs 4-5 crore in future, depending on the number of farmers.
Kisan Credit Card was introduced by NABARD in the year 1998 and RBI encouraged all commercial, rural and cooperative banks to provide Kisan Credit Cards to the people.
The main objective of this card is to provide credit to the farmers on time to cover up expenses incurred during the farming of crops, which are of short duration.
The loan can be availed up to a maximum of 20 per cent of the credit limit. The credit limit is based on the farmer’s land holding, his cropping pattern and the scale of finance that he seeks.
