Rajasthan to be the first Indian State to disburse paperless loans to farmers
Rajasthan is looking to adopt paperless process in disbursing crop loans through cooperative banks in what is seen as a major step in the country's digital revolution.
Rajasthan Cooperatives Minister Udai Lal Anjana Friday said that the process of disbursing crop loans to farmers from cooperative banks will be made paperless and registration through a portal will start from June 3.
Anjana said Rajasthan will be the first State in the country to adopt paperless process in disbursing crop loans through cooperative banks and, it will be a step towards digital revolution.
In the first phase, application form will be made available for free to 25 lakh member farmers paying off the loan regularly, he said.
The form will be available at Gram Seva Sahkari Samiti. Farmers can get themselves registered on cooperative crop loan portal at any Samiti or E-Mitra centre after filling the required information.
The minister said that biometric verification of farmers will be done at the time of registration to scrutinise the available record of farmers that took benefit of crop loan waiver scheme in 2018 and 2019.
The Interim Budget 2019, presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal earlier this year, announced a major bonanza for the agricultural sector in the country, with a new scheme that provides an assured income of Rs 6,000 per year to all those farmers who have land holdings of up to two hectares.
In addition to this, the new Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme is expected to be fully funded by the Government of India, and this is expected to benefit nearly 12 crore farmers. The total outlay for this project is estimated at Rs 75,000 crore, the Finance Minister said at the Budget session.
Goyal said that rural distress has been a major challenge for the government, with low prices and uncertain weather conditions, which in turn has increased stress in the agriculture sector. Hence, the NDA government has promised to double the farmers' income by 2022.
The National Institute for Transforming India said in a report in 2017 that for farmers’ income to double by 2022, the agricultural sector needs to grow at an annual rate of 10.4 percent.
