The defaulted loans in the agriculture sector increased by 44.85 per cent as of March 31, 2014 from that of the same month in 2013 as the farmers failed to repay their loans for not getting fair prices of their products due to a supply chain disruption during the recent political unrest. According to latest Bangladesh Bank data, the defaulted loans in the farm sector increased to Tk 6,662.95 crore as of March 31, 2014 from Tk 4,599.66 crore as of March 31, 2013.
A large number of farmers failed to repay their loans in the first half of the FY14 as they counted huge losses for failure in supplying their products to upazila and district headquarters and to metropolitan cities due to frequent blockades and hartals called by the opposition political parties in the period, a BB official told New Age on Thursday.
Besides, the BB’s relaxed rescheduling loan policy has brought no boon for farmers as the defaulted loans in the agriculture sector increased significantly in the first nine months of the FY14, he said.
The loan defaulting trend in the agricultural sector increased while overall defaulted loans declined significantly in the last quarter of 2013 as the banks rescheduled their defaulted loans on wholesale basis by using the central bank’s relaxed loan rescheduling policy, the official said.
He said that the banks had provided the influential businesspeople and political persons backed by the government with the central bank facility.
But the farmers failed to reach the top officials of the banks to reschedule their defaulted loans and the banks also showed a little interest to save the farmers from the defaulting situation, he said.
The farm sector defaulted loans accounted for 20.52 per cent of the total loans (Tk 32,473.18 crore) disbursed in the sector as of March 31, 2014.
The classified loans in the agriculture sector were 15.95 per cent of the total loans (Tk 28,841.03 crore) disbursed as of March 31, 2013.
Bangladesh Krishi Bank held the largest amount of defaulted farm loans or 52.21 per cent amounting to Tk 3,479.06 crore of the banking sector as of March 31, 2014.
The BKB, however, disbursed the highest amount of farm loans of Tk 14,599.33 crore among the banks against the total distributed outstanding farm loans of Tk 32,473.18 crore.
The BB data showed that as of March 31, 2014 the defaulted loans at Sonali Bank stood at Tk 1,160.53 crore, that of Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank Tk 1,410.66 crore, that of Agrani Bank Tk 279.51 crore, that of Janata Bank Tk 233.84 crore, and that of Rupali Bank Tk 22.42 crore.
The agriculture sector defaulted loans in the private and foreign commercial banks increased by 133.62 per cent to Tk 76.93 crore as of March 31, 2014 from Tk 32.93 crore as of March 31, 2013.
Another BB official told New Age on Thursday that the state-run banks held larger amount of the agriculture default loans than those of the PCBs and the FCBs as the state-run banks usually disbursed the majority of the agriculture loans in the banking sector.
The BB data showed that the overdue loans in the agriculture sector also increased in the period, he said.
The overdue loans in the sector also rose by 42.07 per cent in the last one year.
The overdue loans in the agriculture sector rose to Tk 8,066.41 crore as of March 31, 2014 from Tk 5,677.54 crore as of March 31, 2013.
The BB officials said that the overdue loans would turn into defaulted ones if the banks failed to recover the loans in the quickest possible time.
-With New Age input
