Agriculture is one of the key priority areas of the Government of Jharkhand. Chief Minister, Hemant Soren at different events has said that the State Government is committed to empowering the farmers of Jharkhand. Given this, Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) are being provided to the farmers to ensure ease in agricultural work.
Farmers deprived of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PMKSNY) are also being covered under KCC Scheme. For this, Soren has issued special instructions which direct banks to issue KCC to the farmers.
Director Agriculture, Nisha Oraon Singhmar informed that the Government aims at providing relief to the farmers from the heavy interest laid charged by the local moneylenders. “Through KCC, loans for agriculture work are being provided at an affordable interest rate. To ensure maximum benefit for the farmers, Krishak Mitra, Jan Sevak, Assistant Technology Manager (ATM), and the Block Technology Manager (BTM) have been given the target of connecting farmers with KCC. More than 5, 65, 651 KCC applications were received between July 1 to July 31 and more than 60,787 KCC cards were issued to the beneficiaries,” she added.
“Apart from the above, after the directions from the State Government, the agriculture loan of farmers was also waived off. More than 1, 22,238 farmers have benefited from the scheme and an amount of Rs 600 crore has been spent by the Government for the loan waiver scheme,” said Singhmar.
The Director Agriculture also said that the Government is striving to connect maximum beneficiaries under KCC. “In the year 2016-17, 5,57,933 KCC was issued, 3,16,218 cards in 2017-18, 1,55,953 cards in the year 2018-19 and 5,01,527 KCC in the year 2019-20 whereas more than 8,67,609 KCCs were issued in the year 2020-21,” she added.
Singhmaar said that the Chief Minister directed to cover farmers from the SC-ST community, landless farmers under the KCC scheme on a priority basis. “It is believed that this will benefit almost 5 Lakh new farmers of Jharkhand. Given this, the department has received more than 5, 75,761 applications to be registered under the KCC scheme of July 2021,” she added.
The Director Agriculture said that so far, 30,93,087 farmers have registered under KCC across the State. As per the record of 2020-21, there are 13 Lakh active accounts under the KCC scheme out of these 82,421 accounts have been freshly opened in the current financial year. An intensive campaign was launched and an increasing number of KCC applications were received from farmers by organizing camps in all the districts.
“As per the instructions of the Chief Minister, KCC is being issued to provide relief to farmers in the agricultural activities. Camps to generate awareness and encourage farmers to get registered under KCC are being organized across all the districts. Work is being done to provide benefits to all the eligible farmers of the State,” said Singhmaar.”