Bhubaneswar, Dec 15: In consideration of the difficulties in crop loan dispensation, payment of paddy procurement proceeds and day-to-day functioning of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) in the state because of demonetisation, the Odisha CM, Naveen Patnaik has made a request to the Prime Minister for his immediate attention towards these pertaining issues.
Patanik wrote a letter to the PM yesterday stating that the consequences of demonetization have turned out to be worse in the rural areas specially the DCCB’s are facing the music now. The restriction on the District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) to accept the Sustainable Banking Network (SBN) as deposits and for exchange of such notes, the DCCBs are facing a severe cash crunch. Also the currency chest branches of the commercial banks are unable to provide currencies to the DCCBs to meet the demands of the farmers at the PACS level for their Rabi operations.
He further wrote that PACS are treated equally with individuals in respect of withdrawal of funds from their accounts with the DCCBs and so they are able to draw only Rs 24,000 per week from DCCBs to meet the credit requirement of their farmers. As a result the demand for crop loans, procurement proceeds and insurance claims pertaining to Kharif-2015 are remaining unfulfilled. The PM was also made aware of the problems faced in the transfer of procurement price of paddy from the Apex State Cooperative Bank account to the farmers’ account only if it is a Jan Dhan account, held in different nationalised banks, cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs). If not then such transfers were rejected in many cases thus posing enormous hardship to the farmers.
Thus as a solution, the CM requested the PM to direct all the concerned officials to make the required amount of currencies available to the DCCBs by the Currency Chest branches of the commercial banks under the supervision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Regional Office, so that the DCCBs are able to give crop loans to the farmer members and also pay their paddy procurement proceeds as well as insurance claims. Also the restrictions put upon PACS to draw Rs 24,000 per week to be abolished so that they can cater to the credit requirements of the farmer members. Lastly he also stated to the PM to give allowance of the procurement dues of the farmers, which is being transferred from a government account, irrespective of the amount, to be credited to the farmers account without insisting on the time consuming process of KYC (know your customer) verification.
