Staff Report Islamabad
Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) on Monday launched Kissan Khushhal Scheme (KKS) aimed at enabling farmers to get maximum loan benefits with minimum mark-up.
The KKS will help farmers get timely provision of agriculture credit to meet real needs of the farming community for crop input besides getting easy access towards credit with facility of one-time documentation for three years.
The salient feature of the KKS is that it provides multiple operations of withdrawal and repayment facility to farmers/borrowers thus enabling them to withdraw money according to their needs and repay loan as and when finances are available with them.
“It is a marvelous scheme that provides loan and guidance simultaneously to farmers. It means that farmers can withdraw need-based amount out of the total sanctioned loan limit and the mark-up will be charged on the amount withdrawn by the farmer,” Arshad Hassan Awan, Head Credit ZTBL explained.
Under the KKS, it is the discretion of a farmer to use the entire limit or in partial amounts as required to him/her and similarly repay the liability in his/her loan account as per the cash flow.”
“In simplest words it means that if ZTBL sanctions Rs700,000 to farmer and the farmer withdraws only Rs200,000 from his account, the mark-up will be charged on the utilized amount only and not on the entire sanctioned amount,” Qadeer Javed, Head Credit Policy explained.
“And this is the wisdom behind the KKS by enabling farmer to make judicious use of the loan according to the needs at his farm by issuing checks at his sweet will and refrain himself from the exploitation of middlemen,” he added
This is how ZTBL provides loan and guides farmers at the same time to have maximum benefits of the finance with minimum mark-up.
Moreover, the scheme provides the much flexible facility of repayment of Mark-up in half-yearly installments and principal amount within one year to reduce the debt burden.
Enhanced system-based controls have been embedded to facilitate borrowers to avoid default,” he said.
The scheme has validity up-to three years with one-time documentation, however, the farmer is supposed to clean-up the outstanding amount once in a year for eligibility of the loan for next year.
Maximum per borrower limit under the scheme will be up-to Rs.0.700 million and in case of natural calamities, the insurance coverage is also available. The scheme has been launched as per the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan for empowering small farmers across the country
