CM asks for interest subvention for crop loans

HYDERABAD: Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has urged the Centre  to extend interest subvention for the rescheduled crop loans and to simplify the procedures for rescheduling crop loans.He has also suggested creation of a risk mitigation fund by the Centre with a matching corpus fund to deal with the situation arising from natural calamities. The chief minister was speaking at a meeting of Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee with the chief ministers of the southern states and Union Territories, chairmen of public sector banks and heads of financial institutions at Bengaluru on Sunday.Reddy explained about self-help groups (SHGs) Vaddi Leni Runalu (interest-free loans) and requested Mukherjee to announce in the next budget interest rates on loans to SHGs on par with farmers.The other suggestions made by the chief minister included restoration of the subsidy on premium for agricultural crop insurance to 50 per cent, making the crop insurance scheme more farmer-friendly, increasing the credit flow to medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME). He also wanted steps for acceleration of efforts to supplement government’s efforts to cover all BPL families under the housing scheme, parity in interest rate charged for loans to SHGs and farmers, waiver of the 2 pc service charge being levied by banks on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) payments to NREGA beneficiaries, higher amounts of loans to licensed cultivators, improvements to the crop insurance scheme to make it more beneficial to farmers especially by increasing the threshold limits.