A green, laminated card is slowly changing lives of Indian farmers

A green, laminated card is slowly changing lives of Indian farmers
SONU JAIN

NEW DELHI, MARCH 4: When Balbir Singh of Mirzapur village in Haryana's Faridabad district heard Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha talk about the Kisan Credit Card in the Budget speech, he had a `what's-new?' smile on his face.

Singh flashed his green, laminated credit card to the others sitting in the group and soon became a walking-talking advertisement of the card for 350 families in his village.

The Kisan Credit Card which was launched in 1998-99 by the Ministry of Finance has been one of the most successful government schemes for farmers in a long time. The number of cards that have been issued all over India till Decemeber 31, 2000 is 1.06 crore. The state which tops the list is Andhra Pradesh with 25 lakh cards, followed by Maharashtra with 15.84 lakh.

It operates like a normal revolving credit card with the farmer's photograph on it. A passbook is also issued along with it. It effectively caters to the short-term credit requirement of the farmers over six crops (three years). The credit ranges from Rs 5,000 to Rs 30,000 annually.

It effectively frees the Indian farmer from the clutches of the ubiquitous patwari who had to be given a cut every time the farmer wanted a short-term bank loan. Before every crop, the visits to the patwari would begin and the farz (document certifying the amount of land) would only be issued after the patwari had been ``taken care of''.

Now with the credit card in hand, Singh, the 70-year-old former sarpanch, walks to the nearest Gurgaon Gramin Bank, withdraws money and is free to use it the way he wants -- on seeds, fertilisers or even for repairing his tractor. ``Even when I have Rs 10, I can go and deposit it,'' he said. He has been given Rs 30,000 for a year for his five acres where he cultivates wheat as the kharif crop and bajra and jowar for rabi.

Another reason for its popularity is its easy accessibility. The farmer goes with two photographs, land documents and the card is issued the same day. ``It is valid for three years, so I do not have to pay the processing fee (Rs 20 per Rs 1,000 of the credit issued) every time,'' said Singh. Even the bank officials are not complaining. ``It means less paper work for us,'' they say.

The card also means that now the farmer is free to buy his own seeds and fertilisers. ``Earlier, two-thirds of it was given in kind, so these farmers had no choice but to take the fertilisers and seeds given to them,'' said V.K. Verma, manager, NABARD at Faridabad. Often, the fertilisers were less in quantity than was specified on the bag and the seeds turned out to be rotten.

Though Balbir Singh's village, Mirzapur, was initiated into the age of the card only last season, there are already 34 card-holders. After Sinha said in the Budget speech that every farmer in the country should be given access to the card, the banks are trying to promote it even more. ``We have a body called the Vikas Volunteer Vahini (VVV) which is a link between the bank and the villagers to promote it. It comprises those who have been good borrowers in the past,'' said Jitender Viz, a field officer with the Gurgaon Gramin Bank. Bankers feel that it does not require much effort to coax villagers because they already have a rapport with the farmers who have accounts with them.

What about the recovery rate? ``Since the farmers have to sow their crops, the chances of them defrauding is much less. Our experience has shown that it is 95 per cent,'' said Viz.