Big scam in loan waiver

52,000cr given to ineligible

The Comptroller and Auditor-General has pointed out several lapses in implementing a flagship UPA scheme to waive farm loans of `52,000 crore, claiming that thousands of the beneficiaries were not even eligible while those entitled to the waiver were denied it.

The CAG report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday claimed there was primafacie evidence of tampering, overwriting and alteration of records. The CAG said “monitoring of the scheme was also found deficient”, and has suggested immediate corrective steps like recovery of money paid to ineligible beneficiaries and loans extended to MFIs, action against bank officials and auditors, and filing of FIRs over tampering of records, issue of debt waiver and debt relief certificates to farmers.

“Out of 9,334 accounts test-checked in audits across nine states, 1,257 accounts (13.46 per cent) were found to be eligible for benefits, but weren’t considered by the lending institutions,” the report says. This snowballed into a political controversy with the BJP demanding a CBI probe. BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said: “The report is an eye-opener and the BJP demands an immediate CBI inquiry to unearth the real extent of the scam.”

The party also demanded all eligible farmers be given loan waiver benefits. The Congress, on its part, said the forum to discuss this was the Public Accounts Committee. “In the NDA’s tenure, the CAG had given reports on many ministries that were taken up by the PAC. One never demanded a CBI probe on the CAG report then,” said Congress spokesman Rashid Alvi.