<p>Bengaluru: Although 1.73 lakh farmers across Karnataka meet the eligibility criteria for getting a zero-interest farm loan, the state government disbursed loans only to 13,689 farmers in the current financial year.</p>.<p>Co-Operation Minister K N Rajanna put the blame for the government’s inability to offer these loans to more farmers on the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).</p>.Farmer suicides have come down, says CM Siddaramaiah.<p class="bodytext">Pointing out that NABARD had slashed the corpus of funds for subsidised loans to the agriculture sector by 58%, Rajanna, replying to a question on the issue by BJP MLC Prathap Simha Nayak, said, “Last year, we were able to disburse Rs 5,800 crore in loans to the farmers, but since NABARD has cut down its subsidised loans, we could not provide loans to all farmers.”</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, information tabled before the House shows that the state government issued loans only to 6,744 farmers, with only Rs 290.51 crore being disbursed in total.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The Co-Operation Minister also rued the tendency among farmers to deposit their money in commercial banks on the one hand, while approaching co-operative societies for loans on the other.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“Farmers should understand that societies cannot print notes. Co-Operative societies have no other resources. Owing to the shortage of funds, we cannot disburse the entire loan,” Rajanna added.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: Although 1.73 lakh farmers across Karnataka meet the eligibility criteria for getting a zero-interest farm loan, the state government disbursed loans only to 13,689 farmers in the current financial year.</p>.<p>Co-Operation Minister K N Rajanna put the blame for the government’s inability to offer these loans to more farmers on the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).</p>.Farmer suicides have come down, says CM Siddaramaiah.<p class="bodytext">Pointing out that NABARD had slashed the corpus of funds for subsidised loans to the agriculture sector by 58%, Rajanna, replying to a question on the issue by BJP MLC Prathap Simha Nayak, said, “Last year, we were able to disburse Rs 5,800 crore in loans to the farmers, but since NABARD has cut down its subsidised loans, we could not provide loans to all farmers.”</p>.<p class="bodytext">However, information tabled before the House shows that the state government issued loans only to 6,744 farmers, with only Rs 290.51 crore being disbursed in total.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The Co-Operation Minister also rued the tendency among farmers to deposit their money in commercial banks on the one hand, while approaching co-operative societies for loans on the other.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“Farmers should understand that societies cannot print notes. Co-Operative societies have no other resources. Owing to the shortage of funds, we cannot disburse the entire loan,” Rajanna added.</p>