The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : PACBs seek infusion of additional funds

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Friday, Jun 15, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

PACBs seek infusion of additional funds

Special Correspondent

In unison: Members of the Coimbatore and Nilgiris District Co-operative Primary Agricultural and Rural Development Bank Employees’ Association observing a fast in the city on Thursday.

Coimbatore: The members of the Coimbatore and Nilgiris District Co-operative Primary Agricultural and Rural Development Bank Employees’ Association have urged the Central and State Government to provide additional funds to their banks through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) so that their institutions can start lending again.

They observed a fast here on Thursday pressing this demand as this alone would be able to provide a new lease of life to their banks.

Yeoman service

According to a release from S. Shanmughavadivelu, president of the association, the banks, previously called Land Development Banks, had been extending yeoman service to the rural areas. But, the 17 banks in this category in these two districts were in a predicament now because they were unable to extend any loan for the past four years .Besides, they could not make any collections as well thus leading to loss.

“They are on the verge of closure.”

He pointed out that the State Government relieved the burden of the agricultural community by writing off all the loans obtained by the farmers through the co-operative banks and also by providing reduction in interest for non-farm loans..

While the waiver schemes of the Central and State Governments had been extremely beneficial to the borrowers, the banks that had extended these assistance and their employees were left high and dry. On the contrary, even now these banks were unable to extend any assistance to the farmers (though the farmers had been seeking long-term loans ) because they had no funds at their disposal.

Despite several representations from various bodies of the bank employees, a number of demands of the staff of such banks had been ignored by the authorities, it alleged. And the current agitation was to attract the attention of the State Government.

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