HYDERABAD: Farmers, who are unable to repay their farm loans taken from District Cooperative Central Banks (DCCBs) through Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), can open a new account with a commercial bank and deposit the now defunct 500-rupee and 1000-rupee notes into their accounts.
The amount so deposited will be transferred to the loan account of the farmer concerned through the DCCBs to the PACS concerned.
This was stated by the Reserve Bank of India, represented by its assistant general manager Manabhanjan Mishra, in a counter affidavit to the Hyderabad High Court here on Friday.
The counter affidavit followed a petition filed by Boda Mangaiah and seven other farmers from Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh who complained that they were not allowed to repay agricultural loans with the demonetised currency notes through DCCB/PACS.
The RBI submitted that it issued guidelines by making provision for transferring of funds through the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) up to ` 50,000 for persons who do not hold accounts with the originating banks.
“Transfer of funds to the specified account of originating bank for this specific purpose does not require opening of account by farmers and the money transferred to specified account will be credited to the account maintained with DCCBs.
“The Reserve Bank of India provided the relief to small borrowers of loans up to ` 1 crore by providing additional 60 days’ time for repayment of dues which will be applicable to personal and crop loans, including housing and agricultural loans, taken from NBFC, DCCBs and PACSs.
“About ` 35,000 crore will be required by the DCCBs for Rabi crop loans to farmers by disbursing ` 10,000 crore per week. NABARD would be utilising its own credit limits up to ` 23,000 crore to enable DCCBs to disburse the required crop loans to PACS and farmers.
“The RBI made amendments to master directions on Know Your Customer (KYC) and the amendment has eased the restrictions on complying with the norms issued for KYC and now it is open for prospective account-holders to comply with KYC norms using One Time Pin (OTP) based on E-KYC process and this will facilitate the farmers to easily open account with banks which are permitted to transact business in specified bank notes through Internet or using the services of bank.”
“Thus there is absolutely no difficulty faced in clearing the loans by the farmers,” the RBI official said.