Making Rural Farmers Credit-Ready

Farmers making multiple visits to banks and standing for long hours in the queue to avail of agricultural credits—the norm for many years—is changing rapidly with the digitalisation of the process.

- SANDIP DAS

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), in collaboration with Vadodara-based agri-fintech startup 24x7 Moneyworks Consulting, is helping farmers access agri-credit digitally through the ekisancredit (eKCC) portal. The platform is enabling paperless and real-time onboarding of the farmers.

The eKCC portal is designed for cooperative banks, PACS (primary agricultural credit societies), and RRBs (regional rural banks). It carries out Aadhaar authentication of farmers, land record validation, and loan limits based on crop details and area under cultivation. The platform uses the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub's unified lending interface for digital land records, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) for Aadhaar authentication, e-KYC, e-sign, and Aadhaar data vault for sanctioning loans. Till now, 91 banks have boarded the platform.