94 GRANT OF LOANS AND ADVANCES TO AGRICULTURISTS. 



8. The rules in force in some Provinces regarding the procedure 

 in granting loans might also be revised with the object of affording 

 greater facilities to persons wishing to borrow. Arrangements 

 might be made for the supply free of cost of printed copies of a form 

 of application, to be presented to any revenue officer, and all revenue 

 officers might be required in the case of an oral application to cause 

 it to be recorded in the prescribed form by some official. It is usually 

 sufficient in the case of an application for a small loan to refer it for 

 local enquiry to an officer not below the rank of revenue inspector, or 

 field kannugo, though, where the loan applied for exceeds Rs. 500, 

 it would be advisable to prescribe that the local enquiry should be 

 conducted by an officer of a rank not lower than that of a deputy 

 tahsildar. In Madras fa&fildars have the power to sanction loans not 

 exceeding Rs. 250, while Divisional Officers can sanction loans up to 

 Rs. 500, and Collectors up to Rs. 1,000; and other Local Governments 

 are requested to consider whether similar powers to sanction loans 

 could not safely be delegated to subordinate officers, so as to obviate 

 the delay of a reference to higher authority. In the case of a large 

 loan it is advisable to advance the money in instalments, the second 

 instalment not being granted until the lending authority is satisfied 

 by local inspection that work to the value of the first instalment has 

 been executed ; but care should be taken that this condition does not 

 lead to delay, and reports of trustworthy subordinates as to the 

 progress of the work should be accepted, subject only to such check 

 as is considered necessary. Great importance should be attached to 

 the principle that the advance should be sufficient to cover so much 

 of the total outlay required to construct the work as the borrower is 

 unable to provide from his own resources, as it is often better to refuse 

 altogether an application for an advance than to sanction it in part 

 only, leaving the applicant to borrow elsewhere to complete the work. 



9. The Government of India concur with the Irrigation Commis- 

 sion as to the importance of elasticity in the collection of instalments 

 for the repayment of loans, and approve of their recommendations that 

 suspension should be given without hesitation, whenever, from causes 

 beyond the borrower's control, his crops fail to such an extent as to 

 render the payment of the instalment unduly burdensome to him ; 

 that whenever suspensions of revenue are granted on a large scale over 

 a wide area, they should carry with them automatically suspensions .of 

 the takavi instalments which may be due the same year ; that the officer 



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