SLBC Meeting: CM YS Jagan Urges Support to Tenant Farmers, Women Groups and RBKs

AMARAVATI:  Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy urged the bankers to extend their support to tenent farmers, women groups, placement of banking correspondents at RBKs among other issues and thanked them for cooperating with the State government during Covid crisis.

Speaking at the 216th State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) meeting held here on Thursday, the Chief Minister said that the State economy has gone into slump due to Covid-19, damaging the entire public distribution system, employment, affecting the fall of the country's GDP. However, despite all the odds the State had stood up well where the GDP decline was only 2.58 percent in the State, while it has come down by 7.25 percent. He stated that the overall term loans were down by Rs 3,237 crore compared to the last year, where even the credit to agriculture sector also declined by 1.32 per cent.

The Chief Minister asked the bankers to pay special attention towards providing loans for tenant farmers, as the government has provided Crop Cultivator Right Cards (CCRC) to almost 4,91,330 tenant farmers listing out all the details and were enrolled with e-cropping. The government confirms through a document that they are tenant farmers through CCRC cards and also verifies the crops they are cultivating through e-cropping. He said that there are 10,778 RBKs across the State, supporting farmers from seed to crop sale by enrolling them with e-cropping. e-cropping is linked not only to CCRC cards, but also to interest-free loans, input subsidies, and insurance, and thus provides security for the loans provided by the banks.
In regard to placing banking correspondents at RBKs, the Chief Minister appreciated the bankers committee for appointing 6538 correspondents in the RBKs. He said that each RBK  should have a banking correspondent and be part of the e-cropping process.

He said that  providing ATM facility, credit card, internet provision and online banking is not a complete digitisation, and the digitisation gets complete when the banking correspondents become bankers to the villagers. The government has been providing quality fertilizers, pesticides, seeds through RBKs and placed kiosks for farmers to place orders required for their crops and get them door delivered. However, the whole system needs to be integrated with the banking sector and make Andhra Pradesh as a role model for other states, he said and added that the bankers should consider RBKs as their own.
The Chief Minister said the state government brought in Cheyutha scheme to empower women belonging to SC, ST, BC and minorities. He said an assistance of Rs 75,000 over a period of four years will be provided to the women beneficiary in four equal installments of Rs. 18750 each per year. In this regard, the Government has signed MoUs with the reputed companies like Amul, Allana, ITC, Procter & Gamble, HUL, and Reliance to collaborate and empower women beneficiaries of Cheyutha.

He asked the bankers to pay special assistance towards this programme and help the women in creating assets from the money provided. So far, the government has distributed 1.17 lakh cattle, 72,179 goat and sheep units in the first phase. Under Phase-2, 22,000 people applied for grocery stores and another 35,898 wanted cattle.

The Chief Minister said house sites were distributed to 31 lakh women and the construction of houses has already started for 10 lakh houses and added that target is set to complete 15 lakh housed in first phase. He said the beneficiaries of houses are women also members of self help groups and urged bankers to provide Rs 35,000 loan to each for construction of houses.

He said 9.05 lakh small traders were benifitted through Jagananna Thodu scheme and the state government has been bearing interest for these loans. He asked the bankers to take new applications for every six months and provide loans to the eligible. He also asked the bankers to support MSMEs across the state.

SLBC Convenor V Bramhananda Reddy said banking correspondents were deployed  in 6,538 RBKs of 10,778 RBKs and steps are being taken to fill them in all RBKs. He said that Northern States are also attracted by the programmes being implemented by Andhra Pradesh for self employment of women like Cheyutha and others. He said MPs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have expressed interest in the way women run retail shops in alliance with major companies.

He said Andhra Pradesh stood first in lending loans to small traders under Jagananna Thodu. NABARD Chief General Manager Sudhir Kumar Jannawar said complete digitalisation is over in YSR Kadapa district and this programme  will be launched in Guntur and Srikakulam districts. UBI ED Dinesh Kumar Garg said the programmes being implemented by Andhra Pradesh have helped the economy to survive even in catastrophic situations like COVID. He said RBKs are very beneficial to farmers and sale of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and taking orders though kiosks are breakthrough in the current digital age.

Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath, Agriculture Minister Kurasala Kannababu, Chief Secretary Adityanath Das, Agriculture Special Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah, Housing Special Chief Secretary Ajay Jain, Finance Principal Secretary S S Rawat, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Principal Secretary Gopala Krishna Dwivedi, Social Welfare Principal Secretary K Sunitha, Finance Secretary KVV Satyanarayana, NABARD Chief General Manager Sudhir Jannawar, SLBC Convenor V Bramhananda Reddy and other officials were present. RBI regional director K Nikhila and UBI ED Dinesh Kumar Garg have virtually attended the meeting.