New Delhi : It was in 1998 that the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Scheme was launched for farmers. The KCC would be issued to farmers on the basis of their holdings for uniform adoption by the banks so that farmers could use them to unhesitatingly to purchase agri inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides among other such inputs and draw cash for their production needs. The scheme was extended for the investment credit requirement of farmers allied and non-farm activities in 2004. It was again revised in 2012. The purposes of the scheme were to meet short term credit needs for crop cultivation, post-harvest expenses, produce marketing loan, consumption needs of farmer households, working capital for maintenance of farm assets and activities allied to agriculture and investment credit requirement for agri purposes.
Expansion of KCC scheme
As the KCC scheme was launched, the beneficiaries that the government targeted were farmers, individual or joint borrowers who were owner cultivators, tenant farmers, oral lessees and share croppers and self-help groups or joint liability groups of farmers including tenant farmers, share croppers etc. With passage of time, the present Indian Government as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, in 2023, decided to unveil the Nationwide AHDF KCC Campaign for 2023-24. The step was envisaged so as to help farmers with KCC facility. These farmers were small landless farmers engaged in animal husbandry and fisheries activities. The benefits of the KCC would be adhering to all eligible animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries farmers in India. The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, in association with the Department of Fisheries and Department of Financial Services organized the campaign. The campaign has been continuing from May 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024.
Resultantly, more than 27 lakh fresh KCC were sanctioned to Animal Husbandry and Fisheries thereby giving organizational credit facility to them to meet their working capital needs.
It is noteworthy that the last nationwide AHDF KCC Campaigns were held during November 2021 to March 2023. During the campaign, district level KCC camps were held weekly by KCC Coordination Committee coordinated by lead district manager for one-the-spot scrutiny of application sourced by officials of state animal husbandry and fisheries department from the farmers.
Reaching out to large number of farmers
Replying to a question in Parliament on the fact that had the government adopted a new approach under the Nationwide AHDF KCC campaign for 2023-24 to reach out to maximum farmers in the country, the minister for fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying Parshottam Rupala said the government had decided to continue the nationwide campaign until march 2024. Also to further boost the KCC saturation drive, the government had launched a nationwide special focused campaign ‘Ghar Ghar KCC Abhiyan’ from October 10, 2023 to December 31, 2023 for saturation of PM-Kisan beneficiaries under all type of KCC (crop, cultivation, animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries).
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