CAG report on farm loan waiver scheme exposes corrupt politicians and bureaucrats

06 March, 2013

The CAG report on UPA's farm loan waiver scheme, tabled in the parliament, has exposed massive fraud and thrown light on many untruths circulated in the media.

The parliament was informed that CAG had conducted audit of accounts of about 90,000 farmers between April 2011 and March 2012 and found lapses in over 22% of cases. “CAG has said in the report that bank officials siphoned off loan waiver money by giving loan waiver benefits, around 10% accounts were found ineligible and majority of loan waiver amount was given to so-called farmers and over 34% farmers were not issued debt waiver certificate,” Kishore Tiwai of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) said.

“CAG report is based on less that 1% farmers, hence there is an urgent need for a commission to inquire into the Rs.57, 000 crore farm loan waiver fraud,” he added.

The farm loan waiver demand came before the Indian law-makers in 2006 as distressed dry land farmers were committing suicides due to mounting debts and forceful recoveries by private moneylenders. The farmers were, however, shocked when Rs.71,000 crore mega loan waiver was announced at national level, but was applicable for only those farmers who possessed at least two hectares of land.

This kept most of dying Vidarbha farmers out of farm loan waiver net in 2008. Hence, in 2010 Maharashtra announced extended farm loan waiver of Rs.11, 000 crore to cover distressed farmers but even after that fresh crop loan was not made available to Vidarbha farmers.

Now CAG has exposed truth that bankers selected ineligible farmers and major portion of farm loan waiver was siphoned off between bank officials, politicians and so-called distressed farmers, which is a serious criminal offence. “So, we are pressing for national commission of enquiry,” Tiwari urged.