Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday called for full automation of regional rural banks and cooperative banks, and directed the Department of Financial Services to study the gap between loan sanction and disbursement for these lenders.
Sitharaman’s remarks came at the launch of ‘kisan rin portal’ (KRP) and ‘Ghar KCC Abhiyaan’, an ambitious campaign aimed at extending the benefits of the ‘kisan credit card’ (KCC) scheme to farmers across the nation, and a manual on Weather Information Network Data Systems (WINDS) by the agriculture ministry.
In a statement, the government noted that the initiatives aim to revolutionise agriculture, enhance financial inclusion, optimise data utilisation and improve lives of farmers.
Sitharaman assured the full cooperation of banks for the success of ‘Ghar KCC Abhiyan’ and said the government has allocated enough money under the KCC scheme to ensure easy short-term loans to farmers and their on-boarding for the scheme. The minister said over 1,40,000 crores of insurance have been disbursed to farmers so far, against a premium of ₹29,000 crore.
In its statement, the government noted that Sitharaman also appreciated real-time estimation for rice and wheat crop output and called for the estimation to be extended to ‘dalhan’ and ’tilhan’ crops, so that better planning can be done for their import if needed.
