About one lakh forty thousand farmers in the country are facing certificate cases for default in the repayment of agricultural loans. They have defaulted on loans of Tk 449.25 crore until June this year due various reasons, including the ongoing pandemic, this paper reported on Monday. People engaged in agriculture, fish farming and raising livestock who are mostly cash-strapped, have taken the loans as means to advance activities.
According to the report, the public sector lenders – Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB), Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RKUB), Agrani Bank, Janata Bank, Sonali Bank and Rupali Bank – filed certificate cases. By this time, the banks also issued warrants against 9,983 farmers. This defeats the very purpose of the pro-agro policy of the government. The certificate cases and the warrants have caused grave concern among the affected farmers’ families. In this context, agricultural researchers and experts have said farmers become loan defaulters for not getting fair prices of their produce and due to crop losses. They said the government should waive interest on agricultural loans and create opportunities for easy loan repayment by rescheduling installments considering the farmers’ contribution to food security and the national economy.
Certificate cases against farmers look undesirable particularly in view of the huge default loans of big businesses that the banking sector is mired in. In such a situation the focus should be on the recovery of the swindled money that has gone out from the banks to big businesses or even taken out of the country, rather than dogging the life of poor farmers who have taken paltry amounts of loan and are willing to pay them back. But the public banks are going tough against them by filing certificate cases instead of helping them out. Over the years, certificate cases have piled up in the BKB. Even the bank is dealing with cases filed 40 years back.
Central bank statistics show that in June, 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. We want to say the Bangladesh Bank should find an easy way of rescheduling the payment of farm loans in installments, as the farmers want.
