Cibil Score: Crop loans are available only if the CIBIL score is 650 points.

Three-year recovery track under consideration

Farmers shy away from bank loans

Hyderabad: The monsoon season has begun in Telangana. Investments are required for inputs like seeds, fertilizers, etc. In this context, banks have to sanction crop loans to farmers. However, banks are bringing new restrictions to the fore in sanctioning these crop loans. There are allegations that many banks are implementing strict rules that crop loans will be given only if there is a CBIL (Credit Information Bureau India Limited (Cibil) score) .

Generally, the CIBIL score is at least 700 to 650 points.

This strictly enforced CIBIL score rule has become a nuisance for farmers. Banks are considering CIBIL score even for crop loans in the name of RBI rule.Loans are only available if the CIBIL score is at least 700 to 650 points.Many farmers are expressing concern that the CIBIL score rule has made it difficult for small and marginal farmers to get loans . Bank officials say that they are looking at a three-year track record in loan recovery, and if that record is good, they give loans to farmers even if their CIBIL score is low. They claim that they are sanctioning loans even if there is a difference of one or two months in the previous loan payments. However, many small and marginal farmers do not have a track record. After the bifurcation of the state in 2014, the loan waiver scheme was implemented in phases in the state, and it took five years for all the farmers who had taken crop loans to be waived off. Similarly, the interest burden has increased. As a result, many small and marginal farmers were unable to pay interest and even renew their loans. With this, the bankers who came along with penalties declared the accounts of those farmers as defaulters and non-performing assets.

As a result, the names of these farmers were not included in the lists in the recent loan waiver scheme, and they were all excluded from the loan waiver scheme. Similarly, the loan waiver scheme implemented this year was also continued in installments, and all the farmers did not pay either the interest or the principal on time. This has stopped the renewal of loan accounts.
Even the farmers who paid loans every year till last year are waiting with the thought of paying the balance after the loan waiver is credited, and their CIBIL scores have also dropped. As a result, lakhs of small and marginal farmers have been found ineligible to get crop loans. On the other hand, since CIBIL score is also being taken into consideration for fraudulent loans taken against gold, there has been unrest among the farmers. The farmers are demanding that bankers should relax this rule and that bankers should not consider CIBIL score.

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