Banks under lens: Govt orders audit of debt-waiver scheme
Co-operative, commercial banks to certify that only crop loans written off, farmers’ dues squared off; ₹3,595 crore already disbursed among over 4.2-lakh marginal farmers
The money is being routed through the consolidated fund of the state. Each government spending goes through audit and so should the loan-waiver scheme MANPREET SINGH BADAL, Punjab finance minister
CHANDIGARH :A year after its rollout in January, the state government has ordered audit of its ambitious farm debt-waiver scheme. The audit will be completed in two weeks, before the third phase of the scheme kicks off in January next year. The Captain Amarinder Singh government is rushing to cover more ground before the Lok Sabha polls are declared.
The state scheme covers only crop loans and the agriculture department, which has raised loans to fund the waiver, has put banks under scrutiny to know if they actually waived off crop loans. Also, each bank, cooperative and commercial, will have to certify that the farmer’s slate has been wiped clean of his debt as on March 31, 2017, the cut-off date for the relief. The scrutiny on banks will ensure the money goes into the right accounts in the last two phases.
“We are not worried about the money going into the wrong hands. The verification of farmers was done at several levels, starting from matching data culled from banks with revenue records, self-certification, keeping income tax payers and government employees out of its ambit and social audit. But since government funds are involved, we have to ensure that the accounts settled so far are only crop loans and each beneficiary’s account has been squared off,” additional chief secretary, agriculture, Viswajeet Khanna said. The banks have been given a 14-day deadline to certify the same for each account.
The entire debt-waiver process is to be completed in four phases and the first two have been completed within a year — the second was launched this month. So far, a relief of ₹3,595 crore has been disbursed to over 4.2-lakh marginal farmers (with landholdings less than 2.5 acres). Of these, 3.17-lakh farmers had taken loans from cooperative banks and 1.1 lakh from commercial banks, both private and nationalised.
In the third phase, the state government will cover small farmers who have borrowed from cooperative banks. And in the fourth, small farmers who owe crop loans to commercial banks. Punjab finance minister Manpreet Badal says the audit was necessary as the state has raised loans against the rural development fund (RDF) for the scheme.
“The money is being routed through the consolidated fund of the state. Each government spending goes through audit and so should the loan-waiver scheme,” Manpreet said. Behind the belt-tightening is also the fact that the scheme is likely to overshoot its allocation of ₹4,250 crore in the 2018-19 budget as the state has already coughed up ₹3,565 crore in the first two rounds.
The third phase of the scheme will be launched in January soon after the panchayat polls are over. But the fourth phase is likely to run into the model code of conduct. The promise of loan waiver has proved to be a votecatcher for the Congress in the recently-concluded state polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh and will be the party’s main poll plank to woo farmers ahead of the parliamentary polls.