Chavan seeks probe into fake farm loan waiver beneficiaries

A day after the Maharashtra government admitted to the bungling in the online registration of 67 lakh farmers for the loan waiver scheme, the Congress has launched a belligerent attack.

The former chief minister, Prithviraj Chavan, has alleged a nexus between officials of the cooperative department, credit societies and banks, aimed at cheating the exchequer of huge amounts of money.

He further accused officials of using forged false accounts of farmers to claim the benefits of the loan waiver scheme.

Chavan has also demanded a judicial probe into the dwindling number of beneficiaries -- from 89 lakh to 67 lakh -- and action against those responsible for the mess.

Chavan said, “Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had initially announced 89 lakh beneficiaries and a package of Rs 34000 crore, as part of the drive to make these farmers debt free. Now, Fadnavis is claiming that there will be only 67 lakh beneficiaries. Are the remaining 22 lakh accounts of farmers fake, or has someone siphoned off the loan waiver amount from these accounts?”

The Congress also questioned the methodology of distributing the money and the fake Aadhaar number assigned to multiple bank accounts. “How can the same Aadhaar number be given to different farmers? It shows the utter failure of this government. Action should be taken against those responsible, be it bank or the cooperative department officials.”

Chavan recalled an incident an incident in the credit society where Subhash Deshmukh, the minister for cooperation and marketing, was the chairman of Lok Mangal group.

In this scam, people opened new accounts in the name of farmers, their loans were approved at 9 percent. The credit society made money by finally transferring the money to needy people at 17 percent interest. Chavan alleged similar practices may have been resorted to now.