Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
Thousands of farmers across country are facing certificate cases for defaulting repayment of agricultural loans.
Until June this year, six-state-owned banks filed certificates cases against 139,248 farmers to recover farm loans, latest data of Bangladesh Bank (BB) shows.
A total of Tk 449.25 crore remained stuck in these cases filed by public sector lenders Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB), Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB), Agrani Bank, Janata Bank, Sonali Bank and Rupali Bank.
Agricultural researchers said farmers become loan defaulters for not getting fair prices of produces or due to crop losses.
They urged the government to waive interests on agricultural loans and create an opportunity for easier loan repayments by rescheduling payment of installments considering farmers’ contribution to the nation’s food security as well as the national economy.
Until June this year, BKB filed the highest number of 67,882 certificate cases for the recovery of defaulted agro loans worth Tk 241.82 crore, RAKUB 21,991cases for the recovery of worth Tk 113.61 crore, Agrani Bank 18,406 cases for recovering of worth Tk 11.24 crore loan, Janata Bank 14,389 certificate cases for Tk 37.09 crore farm loans, Sonali Bank 13,312 cases for Tk 38.81 crore loans and Rupali Bank 3,322 cases for recovering worth Tk 6.60 crore farm loans, according to the data.
“Over the years, certificate cases have piled up in BKB. Even the bank is dealing with cases filed 40 years back,” Md. Ali Hossain Prodhania, ex-managing director (MD) of the bank told The New Nation yesterday.
“But in the last three and half years, BKB did not filed any new certificate case against farmers. By this time, bank focused more on farmers’ persuasion for loan recovery. The bank has taken the policy to downsize the number of cases. Concerned bank officers are relentlessly working to settle the cases,” he added.
Md. Ali Hossain Prodhania, who is now on Post Retirement Leave (PRL), also said that BKB managed to recover a substantial portion of outstanding agro loans though the process and farmers are eager to payback their loans.
The BB statistics show that in June this year, some 1,981 certificate cases were settled recovering Tk 12.28 crore while at the same time, 991 fresh cases involving over Tk 9.98 crore were filed.
By this time, banks hard issued warrants against 9,983 farmers.
