Farmers not repaying loan due to debt waiver, demonetisation: Bank

SANGRUR : Authorities at the Patiala division of the Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank are worried.

They claim that last year’s demonetisation announcement and the debt waiver promise of the state government for farmers has hit the bank’s loan recoveries.

“Due to demonetisation and the debt waiver promise, we have failed to collect an outstanding of Rs 563 crore from defaulters in our division. Some affluent defaulters are also yet to pay around Rs 100 cr in total, so far. We have prepared lists of top 50 affluent defaulters of every branch. Defaulters are being approached, but they are not ready to pay their loans,” said Kaur Singh, joint registrar of the bank.

There are seven districts in the Patiala division — Sangrur, Barnala, Mohali, Patiala, Ropar, Fatehgarh Sahib and Ludhiana. The loan was sanctioned for fishery, poultry farming, housing and other purposes. The bank has now decided to hold a protest outside the major and affluent defaulters starting next week.

“We held a meeting today and decided to hold demonstrations outside the residence of defaulters, because they are deliberately not repaying the instalments,” he added.

The bank collects the amount due from its members every six months, after they get income from their crop. Bank officials claim that the affluent farmers have not paid their dues since the Congress’ announcement of debt waiver as part of its election manifesto.