In the rarest of rare actions, the district administration has withdrawn all the money deposits and closed all the accounts with the State Bank of India in protest against bank officials’ reluctance to lend loans to tenant farmers in the district.
Losing his cool for the first time after knowing the poor disbursal of loans to tenant farmers at a review meeting here on Saturday, district collector, B Sridhar directed district revenue officer B Rami Reddy to immediately transfer all the deposits of the administration to other banks in the district. ``Continuous negligence by the bank in providing loans to tenant farmers even after promulgation of an ordinance reflects on the district administration and makes it a poor performer and shows finally as a failure of the government. Farmers were lent just Rs 20 crore as against the year’s target of Rs 100 crore’’ he said. Not satisfied with the explanation offered by the bank’s officials, he ordered closure of all accounts with the SBI and left the Jubilee Meeting Hall leaving the bank’s officials shell-shocked.
Earlier, fuming over the Dakkili tahasildar for giving him an improper answer on cultivation of crops in the drylands in Dakkili mandal, the collector advised him to better to stay away instead of attending the meeting without equipping himself with proper information on that particular issue.