Bank shames defaulting farmers

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, December 10

The Bhiwani District Primary Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank, earlier known as Land Mortgage Bank, has displayed at public places in Siwani posters of 50 farmers who have defaulted in repayment of loans over the years.

Along with their names and photographs, the bank has displayed an appeal to other banks and financial institutions not to give any loan or financial grant to them. The action of shaming defaulters has evoked a sharp reaction from farmers’ organisations, which have threatened to launch a stir.

It has been mentioned in the posters that the defaulters owe a total of about Rs 5 crore to the bank. These farmers have defaulted in payment of between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 12 lakh. Sukhram of Bidhwan village said four farmers in his village featured in the list of defaulters.

He said Om Pati, a woman farmer, owned six acres and defaulted in payment of Rs 3 lakh, Umed owned four acres and defaulted in payment of Rs 2.26 lakh, Rajesh owned four acres and defaulted in payment of 2.40 lakh and Subhash owned seven acres and defaulted in payment of Rs 4.61 lakh.

Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar had raised the issue last year, urging banks not to shame defaulting farmers. Dhanesh Adlakha, chairman of the Haryana State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank, said they had identified only those farmers who had the capacity to repay their loans.

“I scanned the list and started the drive to recover about Rs 50 crore in the first phase. A person who does not want to repay Rs 25 lakh despite owning 70 acres and a three-storey house, besides having a government job, cannot be spared. We have identified about 600 such persons across the state,” he said.

Farmers’ leaders said they had been facing crop losses for the last few years. They said the last kharif crop had been a huge setback as about 50 per cent of the crop in the Siwani region had got damaged due to drought-like conditions in the absence of irrigation facilities.

Dayanand Punia, leader of the Kisan Sabha, said the kharif crop on about 55,000 acres in villages of the Siwani subdivision had not yielded good results in the absence of irrigation facilities. “This situation has been prevailing for about a decade,” he said.