New Delhi, Feb 03: Finance Minister Jaswant Singh today announced that all eligible farmers will receive kisan credit cards by March 31, 2004. The existing kisan credit cards will be modified on individual request for use on ATM machines.

The government has already reduced rate of interest for crop loans by public sector banks to 9 per cent, Jaswant Singh said in his interim budget presented in the Lok Sabha today.

The government has urged the Indian Banks Association to further lower the interest rates for agriculture purposes, he added. The Finance Minister said banks are being advised to assess individual credit-worthiness and to not routinely insist on additional collateral through a mortgage of the entire land holding.

As a principle, collateral security should be proportionate to the valued of the loan, he added.

A committee has been set up under eminent agriculture economist Dr V S Vyas to work out new prescriptions relating to Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in relation to the crop loan account.

The committee will submit its recommendation within 90 days. This will address the problems faced by farmers in the provisioning of credit to them taking into account seasonability and uncertainty of farm incomes, he added. Bureau Report