The Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, on Monday asked bankers to increase loans to farmers during the rabi season as the state was reeling under a severe drought.

Speaking at the 176th meeting of the State Level Bankers Committee, the Chief Minister expressed unhappiness over banks extending only loans of Rs 1,490 crore against a target of Rs 10,000 crore.

In the case of licensed cultivators (tenant farmers) too, the banks did not cover even one fifth of them, he said.

The SLBC president, Mr R. Ramachandran, said that the banks had rescheduled crop loans in the natural calamity hit mandals of the state in the last two years, and in many mandals, the calamities had hit for the third consecutive year, and this had enormously increased the debt burden, which was a cause of concern.