Farmers here are forced to spend twice for fertilizers. Farmers complain that they are forced to part away with a significant amount of their crop loan for chemical fertilizers, which serve no purpose for them.

Farmers complain that those who avail crop loan from the District Central co-op bank here are given only 90% of their loan amount and at least 10% of the loan is being deducted by the co-op banks here for chemical fertilizers, which the farmers don’t use. “Most of the farmers here have adopted organic farming methods over traditional methods. But, the District Central Co-op Bank here deduct at least 10% from the loan amount in the name of fertilizers and provides us with chemical fertilizers, which is of no use to most of the farmers here,” laments V Govindaraj, a farmer from Vaithiya Goundan Pudur. Mr. Govindraj said, “So, if a farmer is sanctioned crop loan for ₹ 1 lakh, at least ₹10,000 is deducted by the bank in the name of fertilizers and we are given sub-standard chemical fertilizers. The standard reply given by officials is that it is government order. Government is forcing down this upon us.”

Another farmer, who doesn’t want to be named said, “unlike earlier, we don’t have access to surplus water resources these days. Most of the farmers have opted for drip irrigation methods and these chemical fertilizers provided by the bank require copious amounts of water. But, organic fertilizers wouldn’t require such huge quantities of water.”

Mr. Govindraj said, “we are forced to spend twice for fertilizers. Since the chemical fertilizers are not used, we are forced to buy organic fertilizers separately for which we need to spend at least another ₹10,000 per acre. Though we have requested the co-op bank officials to provide us with organic fertilizers instead of chemical fertilisers, there hasn’t been any response.”

A senior bank official said that a proposal has been sent in this regard to the government.