Farmers to stage massive protest in front of Bengaluru RBI Office on June 28

Mysore/Mysuru: Demanding to drop CIBIL score for sanctioning agricultural loan, farmers will be staging a massive protest in front of the RBI Office in Bengaluru on June 28.

Disclosing this at a press meet held at Jaladarshini Guest House on Hunsur Road here on Saturday, Karnataka State Federation of Farmer Associations President Kurubur Shanthakumar said that the farmers were facing problems in availing agri loans as bank officials seek their Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL) score before sanctioning loans.

Pointing out that farmers at times are unable to repay the loan principal amount and interest due to drought and floods which lead to crop loss, Shanthakumar said that this will reflect in their CIBIL scores and the banks do not sanction their loans.

Though farmers have repaid the interest for their loans of previous 12 months despite suffering losses, the banks were insisting on full repayment of the principal amount before approving fresh loans, Shanthakumar said and added that this was preventing farmers from taking up agricultural activities due to fund crunch.

The Federation also demanded the new farm loan policy to take cognition of the market value of land owned by the farmers and release loans accordingly, which should be similar to the housing or vehicle loan as the loan amount is equivalent to the mortgaged value.

Federation’s Attalli Devaraj, Somashekar, Hallikerehundi Bhagyaraj, Kiragasur Shankar, Baradanapura Nagaraj, Ambale Manjunath and others were present at the press meet.