KARACHI, July 2: More than 250,000 small farmers in Sindh have been denied access to the bank credit for last five years mainly because the provincial Board of Revenue has failed to issue title of land in the name of these owners and hence no passbooks were given by the lending banks, which could be verified by the board.

“A number of instances have been reported in the province where the passbooks proved to be fake even after verification by the Revenue department,” discloses an official document discussed in the last meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture.

A direct implication of SBR’s failure in providing ownership title and protecting the ownership rights of these 250,000 small farmers is that they rely entirely on informal sector for credit for their crop inputs, which is given on interest rates as high as 130 to 150 per cent.

A large number of these 250,000 small farmers are without ownership titles. They are virtually bonded slaves of the big and mighty feudal and political families of Sindh, who are well represented in the federal and provincial governments and are also present in the Senate, National Assembly and provincial assembly and are in majority of 23 district councils.

No wonder then, the share of Sindh’s farmers in bank loans has come down drastically from 19.60 per cent in 2001-02 to less than 10 per cent in the year 2006-07, the official document reveals.

A senior official in Sindh Revenue department confirmed the irregularities existed in his department for last many years and also instances of corruption with regard to issuing and maintaining ownership record of agricultural land in the province.

“We are trying to set things right,” he promised. But those closely watching the Sindh Revenue department are not ready to believe. “Unless, there is a complete overhaul and those responsible are brought to books and in the docks, no improvement is possible,” a retired official observed.

The Revenue department was scene of a head-on confrontation between two political heavyweights of the province — the Sindh chief minister and the Revenue Minister Imtiaz Sheikh just a few years ago. The chief minister sacked Imtiaz Sheikh on charges of corruption, who retaliated and heaped on accusations on the former.

None of the two were proved innocent so far in any court of law and there are people in the provincial government who believed that both the chief minister and his cabinet colleague were right.

Bankers, however, say that the revenue department in Punjab, is somewhat efficient and service-oriented. It serves small and big farmers and hence the share of Punjab’s farmers in bank credit has jumped from about 73 per cent in 2001-02 to more than 84 per cent in 2006-07. It collects more than Rs1 billion tax on income of the agriculturists.

But in Sindh, to quote a senior banker, the board of revenue is most corrupt, inefficient and primitive that serves only the big and mighty landlord families of the province.

Mainly because of revenue department’s failure to give title of land and protect ownership of small farmers, the share of Sindh in agricultural credit has come down from 19.60 per cent in 2001-02 to less than 10 per cent in 2006-07.

The Sindh Board of Revenue collects hardly Rs300 to Rs400 million tax in a year on income of the agriculturists. It does not protect the interest of landless peasants, who are engaged by big landlords to toil their land.

The revenue department does not take cognizance of big farmers encroaching over state land, particularly in the `kutcha’ area stretched over 1.5 million acres where they have set up comfort homes known as ‘ketties’. These ketties serve as sanctuary for the criminals and a prison for those abducted from the villages and towns.

Sources in banks say that passbooks of a large number of small farmers in Sindh are with the big and mighty landlords who misuse these to get loans for themselves. Bankers working in rural areas say that more than 85 per cent of small farmers in Sindh depend on loans for their inputs on informal sector.

Big landlords of the area or rural grain brokers (arthi) provide loans to small farmers at a very high rate 130 to 150 per cent interest. The loan is not in cash but in kinds for input. The prices of these input—seeds, fertiliser, implements etc are highly inflated.

These 250,000 small farmers serve as perpetual bonded labour for big landlord gentry for generations.

Bankers quote a report of Federal Minister Jehangir Tareen, who disclosed that hardly 30 per cent of farmers in the country had access to bank credits. Most of the 70 per cent farmers in Pakistan rely on informal sector for their input loans at interest rates, which are as high as 80 to 100 per cent.

“In Sindh hardly 15 per cent farmers have access to bank credits,” a banker said who disclosed that most of the 85 per cent small farmers were virtually bonded slaves of big landed gentry families.

“Loans are obtained in the name of small farmers but used by the big farmers,” disclosed a banker, who considered himself helpless in the present system.

The official report also blames the Sindh government of failing to heed to State Bank of Pakistan’s suggestion of reviving the Sindh Cooperative Bank into a micro-finance bank. The Cooperative Bank was virtually plundered by the big landlords of Sindh in the decade of eighties.

Sometimes in 1988 or 1989, the Federal Cooperative Bank stopped providing finances to Sindh’s cooperative after big farmers defaulted on payment of more than Rs1 billion.

In the budget presentation of last several years, the Sindh government has been announcing the setting up of a provincial bank or reviving the cooperative bank. In Sindh, the Mehran Bank scandal still haunts the bankers and politicians and there is a case pending at the highest court.