October 27, 2007	Saturday	Shawwal 14, 1428

KARACHI, Oct 26: The banks, Sindh Revenue Department and leaders of farmers in the province are all set to trade charges and counter charges for falling share of Sindh farmers in the agriculture credits being disbursed by the banks.

An official report discussed in the meeting of Federal Committee on Agriculture last Tuesday chaired by the Federal Agricultural Minister Hayat Mohammad Bosan accused the Sindh Revenue Department for non-cooperation in issuing pass books to the farmers. The report discloses that 250,000 farmers in the province do not have pass books while many bogus pass books have been issued.

The contention of the banks, mainly the Zarai Tariqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) is that farmers in Sindh do not get loans because they do not have the pass books issued by the provincial revenue department.

Senior Member of the Sindh Board of Revenue Anwar Hyder rejected this charge and accused the ZTBL staff of demanding a “cut” from the farmers on the loans to be sanctioned for them. “We have improved our system of issuing pass books,” he said and accused the banks of harassing the small farmers.

“I have written a letter to the Federal Minister of Agriculture Mr Hayat Mohammad Bosan to complain of banks’ attitude towards the farmers in sanctioning of loans,’’ Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah told Dawn by telephone. He said that he was going to Islamabad in first week of November to talk on this issue with all the relevant people including Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

But as the blame game between the Sindh Revenue Department and the banks picks up momentum, the small farmers in Sindh and Balochistan continue to be refused access to agriculture credits. In last six years, the banks increased the volume of farm loans by more than 226.5 per cent from Rs51.7bn in 2000-01 to Rs168.8 billion in 2006-07.

During these six years, the share of Sindh farmers in bank loans came down from 19.60 per cent to 10.25 per cent. The share of Balochistan farmers also fell to 0.5 per cent from 1.51 per cent.

Share of Punjab farmers has increased considerably from 72.78 per cent to 84.34 per cent during the period under review. This has created a serious regional disparity in disbursement of bank resources and development of agriculture. This disparity has far reaching implications on the politics of the country and may emerge as one of the many issues that may dominate next election campaign.

In an effort to address this growing disparity, the Agricultural Credit Committee (ACC) of State Bank of Pakistan stipulated targets for every province in 2006-07 for disbursement of farm loans. All the banks were given a target of Rs22.40 billion or 14 per cent of proposed agricultural credit plan in 2006-07. In 11 months from July 2006 to May 2007, the banks provided only Rs14.53 billion or 10.25 per cent of the total credit outlay to the Sindh farmers.

Loan disbursement among Balochistan farmers was even worse as against a target of Rs2.40 billion or 1.50 per cent of the proposed credit plan, the actual loan disbursement in 11 months was Rs350 million which was 0.25 per cent of Rs141.79 billion actual loan disbursement.

The share of Punjab farmers in 2006-07 was fixed at 78 per cent but actual disbursement was 84.34 per cent. In the current fiscal year the banks have been asked to give Rs200 billion to the farmers. Of this farmers in Punjab have been given a share of Rs156 billion or 78 per cent.

Farmers in Sindh have been given a share of 14 per cent amounting to Rs28 billion, Balochistan 1.5 per cent or Rs3 billion, the NWFP 6 per cent or Rs12 billion and Azad Kashmir and Northern areas 0.5 per cent or Rs1 billon.

“Sindh and Balochistan are bastions of powerful landed gentry,” a senior banker of a privatised bank said. He said the closure of Sindh Cooperative Bank in late 1980s because of default of about Rs1 billion is an open evidence of how big landlords in the province have been swallowing bank loans. Since then all efforts to revive cooperative bank in Sindh or set up a micro finance rural credit bank have failed.

In Balochistan too, the big landlords have been found to be most unreliable borrowers of the banks who are reluctant to enter into any dealing with them. Obviously, the banks have a point in being a reluctant and unwilling lender to the farmers.

According to a World Bank report Sindh has the largest number of big land owners and largest number of land less peasants. Bulk of more than 1.6 million acres of state agricultural land on the either banks of River Indus is under the illegal control of big landlords.

All these big landlords made a big fortune from wheat cultivated on this land on either banks of river Indus where there is no apparent government control.