ISLAMABAD (Eshfak Mughal): The Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif led coalition government has decided to extend the period of miserably failed five loan schemes under Kissan package, announced during last year.
According to the document obtained by the Voice of Public from reliable sources, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced the Kissan package for farmers on October last year, which was started after a gap of two months in Dec 2022. A monitoring committee was also formed to check the status of the implementation, whose regular meetings were also held. These schemes have failed to achieve the expected results mainly due to lack of awareness of the farmers about such schemes and lending procedures of the banks.
According to the document, the goal of giving interest-free loans of Rs.70 billion to the farmers of the flood-affected areas was set, for which a subsidy of 7 billion rupees was also allocated. The scheme could not achieve ten percent of the target as the banks could only disburse below to 10 percent (Rs.6.67 billion) up to 20th June 2023.
The commercial banks has disbursed Rs12.83 billion (85 percent) against the target of Rs15 billion up to 20th June 2023 under the Prime Minister’s Youth Business and Agriculture Loan Scheme. The banks also disbursed only Rs3.83 billion (52 percent) against the target of Rs7.4 billion under the Interest Free Loan to landless farmers in the flood affected areas up to June 20, 2023.
The farmers have received Rs2.95 billion out of target of Rs10 billion from banks under the Inclusion of Agro SMEs in SME modernization Scheme (RFMS) upto June 20, 2023.
Official statistics show that credit disbursements through these schemes remained negligible. Therefore, the government has decided to extend the period of these schemes upto 31st Dec 2023 to provide interest-free loans to the farmers of the flood-affected areas, after which the farmers can now benefit from these schemes.