Rs 230 crore irregularities found in farm loan waiver scheme: PC
Finance minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday informed Parliament that irregularities to the tune of `230 crore have been found in the farm loan waiver scheme and action is being take in this regard.
He said irregularities have been observed in 3,36,516 accounts “involving `230 crore. These are the irregularities. Action is being taken... Nobody will be spared. Nobody is being defended for the mistakes. But the mistakes are extremely small...,” he said.
He was replying to supplementaries in Rajya Sabha. He said 3.73 crore farmers benefited to the extent of `52,259.86 crore under the Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008. “With the scheme of the scale and magnitude that has been implemented, there will naturally be some errors of inclusion, some errors of exclusion,” he said.
He said RBI and NABARD together have examined bulk of the accounts and “...Work is going on”.
Sharing details, he said RBI had 1.85 crore beneficiary accounts to be inspected, of which they have verified 1.76 crore.
RBI found 56,322 cases of error involving Rs 98.97 crore.
NABARD had to verify 1.88 crore accounts and it has completed 1.72 crore accounts. It found irregularities in 2,80,194 accounts involving Rs 131.70 crore.
Under the scheme, direct agricultural loans disbursed by banks between April 1997 and March 2007 to farmers, which were overdue on December 31, 2007 and remained unpaid up to February 29, 2008 were eligible for debt waiver and debt relief.
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