(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Kisan Credit Card for Fishermen
Important Points:
Kisan credit card scheme has been revised. Now the fishermen can take benefits from the cards. Fishermen involved in inland and marine fisheries can avail credit facilities to meet their short term requirements.
In today’s DNS we will highlight the points related to Kisan Credit Card and facilities given to the fishermen under this scheme.
Kisan Credit Card is a scheme providing short term credit facility to the farmers. This scheme was launched in 1998 by Reserve Bank of India and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) on the recommendations of R.V Gupta committee. It aims to reduce farmer’s dependence on the banking sector for credit. Through this scheme farmers can have quick and timely access to affordable credit. This card can be availed from the cooperative banks, regional rural banks and public sector banks. Farmers can also withdraw cash from the credit card for their needs.
The credit cards are issued to the farmers on their land holdings and timely payments of past credits. Farmers need not apply for a loan for different crops. They get a credit facility of 3 years and the repayment is to be done after the harvest. Limited paper work is required for withdrawal of funds from the banks.
Earlier the Kisan Credit Card scheme was limited to agricultural farmers. But now it has been extended to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers too. This extended facility is going to help meet their working capital needs and short term credit requirements for rearing animals, capturing fish etc.
Giving the facility of Kisan Credit Card to the fishermen community is a wise decision. As Indian fisheries is an important sector for food production providing nutritional security, livelihood support and provides employment to 14 million people. The total fish production in the year 2017-18 was estimated to be 12.60 million metric tonnes. Fish and fish products are exported in large numbers from India.
To provide fishermen with the credit facility banks were instructed to extend the credit facility to fishermen, fishermen groups, self help groups and women self help groups hooked to inland and marine fisheries. The Scale of Finance would be fixed by District Level Technical Committee and repayment period will be fixed by banks. The recipients of the scheme will soon be given cards for availing credit facilities.
Under the KCC scheme interest subsidy for animal husbandry and fisheries farmer are @2% per annum and additional interest subsidy @3% is given on prompt repayment that is within a year.
This credit card scheme will help fishermen with better cash inflow and prevent them from taking loans from local money lenders at high interest rates. Issuing KCC has helped in increasing the agriculture credit as well as increasing farmer’s income.
KCC provision to the fishermen of the country will be helpful to enhance basic infrastructure, supply of quality breeding materials, genetically improved fish seeds etc. This will ultimately impact the productivity and incomes of fishermen. The scheme will also be fruitful to the emerging entrepreneurs in the field of open sea and coastal cage farming. The fishermen have faced several serious issues like lack of finances, storage facilities, lack of ice plants etc which can now be dealt easily with the provision of Kisan Credit Card scheme facility. The KCC scheme will cater to the needs of the fishermen and in turn cater better outputs to them. Each and every challenge faced by the fishermen can directly and indirectly faced and overcome by the credit facility provided to them.
