ALUVA: The government aims to provide agriculture loans for farmers without any interest, said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. He was inaugurating the golden jubilee celebrations of Ernakulam Co-operative Agricultural Rural Development Bank here on Sunday. The government would insist nationalised banks and scheduled banks to provide special incentive at the rate of 2 per cent to farmers for prompt payment of agriculture loans. The Central Government has allotted 2 per cent and the State government has earmarked 5 per cent incentive to the farmers for prompt payment of agriculture loans. A special meeting of the top officials of nationalised banks and co-operative banks was convened on Wednesday to take a decision on special incentive for prompt payment of agriculture loans, Chandy said. Presiding over the function Cooperation Minister C N Balakrishnan said that even the co-operative banks were charging heavy interest on agriculture loans. He asked the Chief Minister to intervene strongly to reduce the interest rates of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). The loan mela was inaugurated by Public Works Minister V K Ebrahim Kunju.Excise Minister K Babu honoured the model farmers. K P Dhanapalan MP has presented the farmer awards. Anwar Sadath MLA distributed V C Ahemedunni Endowment. V D Satheesan MLA and Jose Thettayil MLA presented the awards to the children of the members of the Rural Agriculture Development Bank and children of the workers of the bank respectively. Bank president K K Jinnas welcomed the gathering.Benny Behanan MLA, State Co-operative Agriculture Development Bank president Solaman Alex, ex-MLAs P J Joy and M A Chandrasekharan, M O John, M T Jacob and bank vice-president P V Poulose spoke.
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