Farmer loans stymie black marketers

Wijayani Edirisinghe and Jayasiri Munasinghe

The People's Bank has launched two loan schemes for the benefit of 2.5 million paddy farmers in the country.

These two loan schemes titled Vee Bissa and Vee Wawanna farmer loan schemes will help protect their harvests and ensure better prices for their produce.

The Bank has commenced these two loan schemes for the farmers on the instructions of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The President has instructed the Bank to begin a special loan scheme for the farming community in the country recently.

Cooperatives and Internal Trade Minister Johnston Fernando has requested farmers not to sell their production to black marketers for a song. He said that the farmers should make use of these loan schemes to process and store their production to ensure better prices.

The Farmers are given loans for the storage of their harvest under this loan scheme.

They are also entitled to receive funds for the recovery of their cost of production until they get better prices, under these loan schemes.

Minister Fernando and Paddy Marketing Board Chairman K.B. Jayasinghe were of the view that these loan schemes would guarantee a better price for their harvest.

The Farmers can obtain a loan of Rs.50,000 under the Wavanna loan scheme while a loan of Rs. 100,000 is given to farmers under Vee Bissa farmer loan scheme that carries a low interest rate . The repayable period for Nee Bissa loan scheme is ten cultivation seasons while while Wadanna farmer loan scheme has a repayment period of 3 months. These loans can be obtained from any People's Bank branch within two working days.

The Minister stressed that he would make every possible effort to ensure a better price for the harvest of the paddy farmers. The Minister has given instructions to the Paddy Marketing Board to begin paddy purchasing from Agrarian Services Centres too.

Cooperatives and Internal Trade Ministry in a release yesterday said tha the Paddy Marketing Board has opened purchasing centres in the Eastern, North Western, Northrn and North Central provinces as the paddy purchasing process has started.