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The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) launched two schemes of Agricultural Loans Refinancing & Guarantee Scheme and remission/write off of both farm and non-farm agricultural loans of the small farmers for the revival of the economic activities in the war-hit areas of NWFP and Fata.
This was stated by Chief Manager, SBP, Banking Services Corporation, Peshawar, Tasleem Qazi while addressing a press conference here on Monday. Besides these two schemes, the central bank has also initiated one-widow operation for agriculture loaning pilot project phase-ii in three districts of NWFP and exchange/repayment of currency notes charred due to bomb blasts.
The chief manager was flanked by representatives of eight commercial banks including Allied Bank Limited, Habib Bank Limited, MCB Bank Limited, National Bank Limited, United Bank Limited, Askari Bank Limited, Bank of Khyber and Arif Habib Bank. Under Agricultural Loans Refinancing & Guarantee Scheme, the farmers of war affected areas of NWFP and Fata would be facilitated in obtaining fresh loans from banks to resume agricultural activities.
It has been decided that banks are allowed to obtain refinance facility against the agricultural production. He said the banks would provided working capital loans to farmers of Swat, Lower Dir, Upper Dir, Malakand, Buner, Chitral and Shangla, while tribal areas of Bajaur Agency, Khyber Agency, Kurram Agency, Mohmand Agency, North Waziristan Agency, Orakzai Agency and South Waziristan Agency will also benefit from the scheme.
The SBP will share up to 50 percent of the bona fide losses of the banks against the loans funded under the scheme. Under the scheme the banks would disburse an amount of Rs 901 million.
The agricultural credit will mean only farm and non-farm credit for meeting the production/working capital requirements. All categories of farmers included owners, owner-cum-tenants and tenants of the specific areas will be eligible for agricultural loans under the scheme. The commercial banks will provide agricultural loans to farmers as per their credit policy and SBP regulations.
The Chief Manager of the SBP said the banks would be encouraged to arrange for the insurance of loans provided under the scheme and mandatory crop loans for five major crops viz. wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane and maize to avoid risk of losses due to natural calamities.
The tenor of the crop production loans and its repayment will be based on the cropping cycle. For other farming activities working capital will be provided for a maximum period of one year. There will be no maximum limit for borrowing by the farmers under the scheme with maximum mark-up rate of 8 percent per annum. The banks will receive and processed the applications in a period not more than five working days. In case of the decline of request, the bank will explicitly apprise the applicant of reasons for rejecting the application.
The designated bank branches are ABL (Chitral), HBL (Chitral) MCB Bank, NBP (Chitral, Boni, Mastuj, Darosh, Reshun, UBL (Timergara+Mingora) and Arif Habib Bank. For redressal of complaints, all designated banks have set up help desks with a focal person, while SBP BSC (Bank) Peshawar would also be contacted on phone number 091-9211976.
Moreover, he said under the relief package announced by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani for small farmers of Malakand Division and Fata write-off/remission of agricultural loans, all agricultural loans of small farmers having outstanding balances as on 30.6.2009 of the districts of Malakand Division viz. Swat, Buner, Shangla, Lower Dir, Upper Dir, Malakand and Chitral and tribal agencies of Bajaur Kurram and Khyber Agency would be written off and the cost thereof will be borne by the federal government.
The criteria of small farmers will be the farmers having subsistence land holding ie upto 12.5 acres and in case of non-farm sector livestock 20-50- cows/buffaloes & upto 150 goats/sheep; poultry (upto 5000 birds/broilers and 1000 birds for layers: fisheries: one boat for marine and upto 2 acres pound for inland fisheries.
The third scheme of one-window operation for agricultural loaning pilot project phase-II has been initiated in three districts of Mardan, Swabi and Mansehra. The farmers have been facilitated in getting agricultural loans under one roof on the spot due to the presence of bankers, staff of revenue department, post office and agricultural department. The fourth scheme is exchange/repayment of currency notes charred due to bomb blasts. The SBP BSC Peshawar had opened a special counter to receive the charred notes and give fresh currency notes from 9am to 5pm.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2009

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