The Hindu : Kerala News : Minister hits out at banks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 04, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Minister hits out at banks

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 3. The Minister for Cooperation, M.V. Raghavan, said here today that nationalised and other scheduled banks were charging exorbitant rates of interest for farm loans.

The Minister told presspersons that banks charged 10 per cent interest on agricultural loans while the cooperatives charged only 8.5 per cent. It was highly objectionable that the banks were not responding to the drought situation in the State by bringing down the interest rates as the cooperatives had done, he said.

The deposits in banks from Kerala came to about Rs. 62,000 crores. However, the agriculture credit offered by them was only Rs. 9,000 crores. Much of the money was being diverted to other States on the excuse that there were no viable projects in the State.

He said the Nabard had not even sanctioned Rs. 630 crores sought by the cooperatives. However, it was making claims that the cumulative credit to the State last year came to nearly Rs. 5,000 crores.

He said that it would not be possible to eliminate the district cooperative banks from the credit chain to bring down the interest rates. Instead, Nabard could be excluded from the refinancing chain.

He said that there was no question of announcing a moratorium on recovery of non-farm loans given by the cooperatives, as that would hit the cooperatives badly.

The Minister said that the objections being raised by the CPI(M) against the election of the businessman, P.V. Abdul Wahab, could be the result of infighting in the party. He did not see anything wrong with the nomination of Wahab. Even the Chinese Communist Party was now admitting capitalists into the party.

Mr. Wahab was a director of the Kairali channel sponsored by the CPI(M). The objection to his candidature now could be because he came in as the nominee of the Muslim League.

Mr. Raghavan said that the UDF would win more seats this time than in the last Lok Sabha elections. The winners would include Padmaja Venugopalfrom Mukundapuram. He said the difference in the UDF over candidature in Adoor and other constituencies would be sorted out as the campaign took off.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala