Mr. Nick Ashmore:

We ask the banks to screen for qualifying criteria. Of all the loans that were presented to the SBCI through the IT system we built with the banks, we did not turn any down for failing the criteria. Trying to track loan applications, formal or informal, at the actual bank branch level or over the phone is very tricky. It is one of the really difficult areas to try to capture that last piece of information. When we structure these schemes, we try to gather absolutely the essential information to deliver the policy measure. Unfortunately, the more information we ask for, the less likely the banks are to work with us and process the loans efficiently. It becomes very bureaucratic and complicated. We do not capture quite the degree of interaction information that the banks have and that we might ultimately like to have. We have really focused on making sure that the loans that are there are qualifying, and are going to the right farmers under the right terms and conditions. That is where we focus our information gathering and our work.

Coming to the question of how far the scheme could have gone, we do not have that information. We can go back and make a further query with the banks to ask them if they have an idea. Ultimately, they did say to farmers at a point in time that they were done. There may have been other applications that could have come after that, but we simply would never know about them. Unfortunately, it is a very difficult question. It would be a great question to be able to answer to feed into further policy measures or actions.