BHUBANESWAR: In a move to address the challenge of providing jobs to increasing number of migrant labourers returning home amid Covid lockdown, the State Government has made a provision of Rs 900 crore to extend short term credit for undertaking economic activities.
The Government is in the process of preparing a panchayat-wise beneficiary list, to be provided to Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS), for enrolment as new members for institutional credit linkage for economic activities in agriculture and allied sectors. “The new members of PACS will be issued Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) for availing credit at concessional rate of interest. Such credit cards will also be issued to beneficiaries of PM-Kisan and KALIA not having KCC,” said a senior officer of the Cooperation department.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has made available a special liquidity support of Rs 1,500 crore for the short-term cooperative credit structure of the State and the Centre has also announced additional liquidity capital funding for concessional credit to farmers and agricultural labourers through KCC. “This additional financial support will be leveraged to address challenges like maintaining food supply chain and reverse migration of lakhs of workers to the State,” the sources said.
In view of the return of migrant workers, PACS and District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) have been asked to promote joint liability groups (JLGs) from among NREGA card holders, migrant labourers and individuals having access to productive assets but with no ownership for facilitating KCC-based crop loan/working capital, undertake agricultural and allied activities under fisheries and animal husbandry.
The proposed JLG should be ideally comprising 4-10 members for availing bank loan for a similar economic activity. Each of the member will be provided credit assistance of `5,000. The NABARD guidelines will be followed for credit and capital formation by the JLGs. The State Government had supported 28,836 JLGs in 2019-20 by extending short term credit support of `148.39 crore. A target has been given to department to increase the number of JLGs to 75,000 in the current financial year. The special liquidity support for the JLG is 10 per cent of the `9,000 crore revised short term cooperative credit for kharif operation in the current financial year.