8
35. As far as interoperability of RuPay Cards/Kisan cards on Micro-ATMs are
concerned, it has gone live for 8 banks and the work is in progress in case of
other 11 banks. Except these 19 banks, all other banks are yet to approach to
NPCI for making their RuPay cards interoperable on Micro-ATMs/POS.
Extent of Coverage under RuPay Cards
36. At the All India level, the progress of issuance of RuPay Cards is quite slow as
only 12.2 per cent of live KCC accounts have been issued the RuPay cards. The
agency-wise analysis of coverage of operative KCC accounts by smarts cards is
highest in case of Commercial banks (33.8%) followed by RRBS (11.2%). This
percentage is very negligible in case of cooperative banks at 0.06 per cent of the
total Kisan cards operative with cooperative banks.
37. As reported by sample bank branches, on an average, the number of RuPay Card
received at branch from their controlling offices as per cent of number of KCC
A/c outstanding stood at 32 per cent which was ranging from 10% (UP) to 69%
(Maharashtra).
38. As far as issuance of RuPay cards to sample farmers is concerned, it was observed
that only 193 out of 714 sample farmers (27%) had got/ taken RuPay cards and
the rest 521 farmers were either not issued or had not taken the RuPay cards
from the bank.
39. Only one third of the farmers who were issued RuPay cards were using the RuPay
cards on ATMs. Further, about 57 per cent of farmers using RuPay Card used to
take the help of their family members, mostly the son or daughter, to operate on
ATM machine.
40. The reasons for gap between the number of KCC accounts with the bank branches
vis-à-vis number of KCCs issued to farmers and number of RuPay cards handed
over, as opined by the branch managers, were mainly (i) controlling offices not
making available the RuPay Cards in sufficient numbers or delay in supplying
the cards to branches (ii) bankers were averse of issuing RuPay cards to NPA and
other irregular accounts (iii) bankers were of the view that both the bankers as
well as farmers don’t see much utility of RuPay Kisan Debit Card as a banking
product because once the KCC loan is approved by the bank and credited to the
farmers account, the farmers prefer to withdraw the entire amount from the bank
in just one or two withdrawals (iv) given the choice, the bankers willingly don’t
extend KCC loans to unviable holding, but the pressure from the government
makes them cover the agricultural farmers under KCC loan (v) the illiterate
farmers don’t feel comfortable in doing transactions at ATM machines and they
were also afraid of misuse of their cards even by their family members (vi) as of
now, neither ATMs nor POS machine are available in sufficient number and also,
vendors are finding it difficult to supply the cards in time and they normally take
6 to 8 months to supply the chip based cards. (vii) absentee landlords/ farmers
not residing in the villages were not very keen in getting RuPay Card issued (viii)
the bank/ branches not having ATMs of their own bank were of the view that
