Though floods in a number of districts have affected about 25,000 hectare of paddy land this year, there is more coverage of paddy cultivation in the State.
There is submergence of paddy field and nurseries in the districts like Rayagada, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Baleswar, Bhadrak, Jajpur and Kendrapada; and as per preliminary reports, 25,000 hectare has been affected.
The latest report on crop condition revealed that broadcasting Kharif paddy has been covered in an area of 14.31 lakh hectare till date. And so far coverage under various crops has been good and till end of July, at least 4 lakh hectare more area has been covered as compared to corresponding period of the last Kharif season.
So far, transplanting of paddy has been completed in 8.6 lakh hectare.
So the farmers need more credit input in comparison to 2016’s Kharif, so that they can scale up the production and productivity.looking at the growing requirement of the farmers the credit plan for Kharif was set at Rs 12,000 crore. While cooperative banks are to provide Rs 7,000 crore, their counterparts in the commercial banking sector was to fund Rs 5,000 crore.
While cooperative banks are coming forward to provide credit to the farmers in the Kharif Season, reluctance of the commercial banks in extending similar facilities is causing worry for the cultivators.
The latest report on credit reveals that as of now Rs 6,834 crore has been provided to 17.77 lakh farmers under the programme.
However experts feel that as this is the real time period for extending credit, it was expected that by now at least Rs 8,000 crore of credit could have been provided by the bankers.As usual cooperative banks are continuing their spree in providing credit to farmers, and commercial banks are lagging behind. So farmers are facing tough time in this regard.