A meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare was held on Wednesday (23 March 2022). The Committee had discussed various aspects of the Kisan Credit Card Scheme for improvement as well as better implementation.
Addressing the committee, Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Agriculture Minister said that the government is running a campaign for saturation of KCC to farmers to cover all leftover Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana beneficiaries. Tomar said that all the administrative charges up to Rs. 3 lakh of short-term loans like processing fee, inspection fee, ledger, folio charges etc. have been removed so that more farmers can get loans at cheaper rates through the Interest Subvention Scheme.
He also told that the form for KCC has been made simpler and directions have been sent to banks to issue Kisan credit card within 14 days of receipt of the complete application form. As a result of sustained and concerted efforts by banks and other stakeholders in the direction of providing access to concessional credit to farmers, a major milestone has been achieved by covering around 2.94 crore farmers under the KCC scheme with the sanctioned credit limit of Rs. 3.22 lakh crore as of 4 March 2022, Tomar added.
Joint Secretary Shri Ritesh Chauhan also gave a presentation on the details of KCC scheme.
The committee members after raising their concerns gave suggestions for further improvement of the KCC scheme. Minister thanked the committee members for their valuable suggestions and assured them that the Ministry will look into each suggestion and will come out with favorable solutions for the betterment of farmers. Tomar requested members to put their efforts into creating awareness about KCC scheme among the farmer community in their respective constituencies.
The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Kailash Chaoudhary, Members of Lok Sabha - Bellana Chandrasekar, Jaskaur Meena, Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Mahendra Singh Solanky, Pradeep Kumar Chaudhary, Rodmal Nagar, Rama Devi & Shriniwas Dadasaheb Patil, Members of Rajya Sabha Geeta alias Chandraprabha & Ram Shakal.
Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary of Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare along with the other officials of Agri Ministry, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying were also present during the meeting.
Source - PIB
