Nabard launches pilot project for tenant farmers in Andhra

Ropes in Rytu Mitra groups to select beneficiaries

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has launched a pilot project in six districts of Andhra Pradesh, to provide succour to the tenant farmers.

It will provide 'Rytu Mitra' groups in the state for onward lending to the tenant farmers, who are likely to receive the loans by early September.

The scheme, if successful, would be expanded to the entire state and replicated in all the other states.

Nabard chairperson Ranjana Kumar told a press meet here today that Nabard had selected 'Rytu Mitra' groups as these groups mainly comprised small and marginal farmers and tenant farmers.

Nabard hopes that the experiment in Andhra Pradesh would effectively address the main problem of banks, regional rural banks and co-operative societies in identifying and lending to tenant farmers for want of pattadar passbooks, she said.

"The scheme is a revolutionary concept. If successful, it will end the travails of scores of tenant farmers across the nation, who at present find it very difficult to source finance to carry out farming activities," she said.

Nabard chief general manager J R Sarangal said that the Nabard pilot project was being implemented in the six districts of Vizianagaram, Nizamabad, Guntur, Anantapur, Mahboobnagar and Cuddapah districts.

At present, Nabard is formulating guidelines of extending finance to Rytu Mitra groups which in turn would pass on the credit to identified tenant farmers in the respective areas of their jurisdiction.

It hopes the tenant farmers would be provided with loans by early September.

Ranjana Kumar said that Nabard had also decided to closely monitor agri lending by banks, regional rural banks (RRBs) and co-operative societies. It would re-activate the 'Farmers Clubs' in the country, which had been lying dormant.

There are around 9,000 'Farmers Clubs' groups in the country and Andhra Pradesh accounts for around 1,200 clubs. These clubs would be an effective fora for dissemination of various credit schemes available to the farmers and also train farmers in new and productive farming practices.

In this regard, she rued that a major section of farmers were not yet aware that they could get up to Rs 50,000 without any collateral. Nabard was also distributing CDs to banks, RRBs and co-operative societies on around 90 bankable schemes, she said.

The Nabard chairperson was here to take part in the two-day 'National Consultative Meet "� Critical Issues Confronting Farmers' which began at the Marri Chenna Reddy HRD Institute today.

The meet was the culmination of a number of meetings held with bankers, farmers, NGOs and agri experts in the seven states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Rajasthan and Orissa in July.

Ranjana Kumar said that the national meet had decided to recommend simplification of documents for accessing up to Rs 1 lakh credit by the farmers.

The meet also discussed a wide range of issues like credit-related issues, risk mitigation and safety net for farmers, management of inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, agri machinery etc.

An action plan would be submitted to the Central government soon, she said. Senior state government officials led by chief secretary Mohan Kanda and the representatives of NGOs, banks and agriculture universities took part in the meet on Sunday.