Bhubaneswar If politicians and Governments actually want to help farmers, they need to create a vibrant agricultural financial system and bring attitudinal change to use loan amount in productive manner. So that it will allow farmers to tide over the bad times. A nationwide farm loan waiver will be economically disastrous, said former chairman of Odisha Gramya bank Saroj Kumar Dash here on Thursday.
Speaking at a seminar on ‘Role of Finance in Rural Sector’ organised by Institute of Media Studies (IMS) here, he said farmers, even big ones, are also not coming forward to repay their dues. This situation is prevailing in the whole state. In most of the cases, farmers are utilizing the loan amount to marry off their daughters and to consume alcohol. Farmers of small scale businessmen are taking loans but not utilizing it for the right purpose. Instead, they are utilizing the money for their daughters’ marriage, he added.
Attending the seminar, Chartered Accountant Er Ramesh Chandra Giri stressed on promoting rural financial services to check monopoly of local money-lenders who often abuse farmers and others. Maximum slippage as far as loan recovery is concerned has been witnessed in the accounts of small and marginal farmers. The new paradigm advocates that the development of rural financial system and the decentralization of rural credit provision through a variety of institutional and organizational devices, he added.
Among others, manager of SBI training branch Barendra Rana and Director of IMS Prof Upendra Padhi also spoke.
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