BADIN, Aug 7: On the directives of the governor of the State Bank, the Local Credit Advisory Committee held a meeting here on Saturday which was presided over by Sher Alam Khan, chief manager, SBP, Hyderabad.

The meeting was attended by Ayub Khan, in-charge, LCAC; Abdul Karim Bilali, general manager (agriculture) and vice-president, National Bank of Pakistan; branch managers of various banks and development finance institutions and representatives of farmers.

The problems related to loans for farmers were discussed in the meeting which proposed that easy procedure should be adopted for extending loan to farmers.

The representatives of the farmers complained about unnecessary demands from bank officials while advancing loans, and objected to the check lists which they termed as a delaying tactic.

The meeting considered the demand of farmers regarding requirement of documents for loans, and called for simplifying the procedure for grant of agriculture loans on pass books, without obtaining further guarantees.

The meeting was told that two demands of farmers for reducing markup on the loans and stopping coercive recovery had already been met as markup had been reduced from 14 to nine per cent and directives issued to the recovery authorities not to get the defaulters arrested.

Meanwhile, many farmers gathered outside the venue of the meeting to present their complaints against the behaviour of officials of the banks.

They were complaining against bank staff for denying them loans and demanding observation of unnecessary formalities.

Qasim Bheel, a small-scale farmer from Deh Gad, Badin taluka, said that he had applied for a small loan from the Zarai Taraqqiati Bank against his agriculture pass book but he was asked to fulfil some other requirements. After the requirements were met, he was denied loan on the pretext of non-availability of money in the bank and asked to wait for recovery of loans from others.

He said that later, he also applied for a loan from the NBP but matter was being delayed on one or the other pretext.