Minister Sujatha seeks `40 crore from RBI

- The Minister says there are 3.5 lakh pensioners in the dist and asks cash in Rs 500 notes
- Suggest bankers to sanction loan of Rs 10k to each farmer for kharif crop
- Collector K Bhaskar requests the RBI officials to allow Municipal commissioners to withdraw cash to pay pensioners

Eluru: West Godavari District Consultative Committee (DCC) meeting requested the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to release Rs 40 crore in the denomination of Rs 500 to disburse towards social pensions to the beneficiaries in the district. Women and Child Welfare Minister Peethala Sujatha participated as chief guest in the meeting.

The DCC meeting was held here at Collector’s meeting hall on Monday District Collector K Bhaskar was on the chair. The meeting observed that about 3.5 lakh pensioners have to receive pensions every month in the district and there is need of hard cash for disbursement of the same.

Peethala Sujatha said that steps have been taken to pay pension to 3.5 lakh people in cash to a tune of Rs 40 crore and added that the bankers should concentrate on sanctioning loan of Rs 10,000 to farmers, as they have to start the rabi cultivation in the district. She also suggested bankers to keep cash reserves according to the needs of the ensuing festival season. She thanked the general public, who are standing in long queues for over a month. She said so far Rs 3,000 crore has been sent by Reserve Bank of India (BI) to the district and asked the bankers to concentrate on rural areas to pay the amounts in cash, as the rural people are suffering from the cash crunch to purchase even vegetables.

West Godavari district collector K Bhaskar said that every pensioner of various schemes has been opened bank accounts and during last one month, the pension amount had been credited to those accounts. However, he regretted that the pensioners have suffered a lot in drawing the money from the banks. He requested the RBI officials to allow the MPDOs and Municipal commissioners to withdraw cash from the banks to disburse pensions. He observed that if cash disbursement took place in the rural areas, scores of pensioners can avoid standing in the queues.

He said Rs 600 crore have been credited to the farmers account for the kharif paddy and suggested the bankers allow them to withdraw some amount from their accounts. He said Rs 225 crore is required every day and Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 crore have to be circulated in the district. However, the RBI has released Rs 3,180 crore only and said about 1.30 lakh new bank accounts have opened and 1.12 lakh repay cards have been distributed to the account holders.

The collector requested the bankers to sanction loans to tenant farmers since bankers are sanctioning big loans to the landowners instead of the tenant farmers.

He suggested bankers take up awareness among the farmers and people on the Standup India micro, small and medium entrepreneurs’ schemes. Unguturu MLA Ganni Veeranjaneyulu, NABARD Assistant General Manager B V S Ramaprabhu, Andhra Bank AGM M Gurumurthy, Lead Bank District Manager M Subrahmanyeswara Rao, Additional Joint Director MH Sheriff, District Revenue officer Katta Hymavati and others participated in the meeting.