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Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 4
The marginal farmers in Punjab who had taken loans from public sector and private banks were benefitted more than those who took loans from cooperative banks under the state government’s crop loan waiver scheme. The average waiver per farmer in case of commercial banks is nearly three times than in case of cooperative banks, according to an internal audit report.
The state government’s debt-waiver scheme was applicable to only crop loans availed by small and marginal farmers.
While the average loan waiver for marginal farmers (those having less than 2.5-acre landholding) of cooperative bank is Rs 58,000 per person, in case of commercial and private banks, it is around Rs 1.64 lakh per person. The state government’s debt-waiver scheme was applicable to crop loan only. The state government has disbursed Rs 4,500 crore under crop loan waiver scheme and covered 5 lakh small and marginal farmers in the state.
“In an internal audit, we found that marginal farmers who have availed loan from commercial banks were paid almost three times than the cooperative banks’ customers under the waiver scheme. There is a huge gap which is practically not possible,” said Vishwajeet Khanna, Additional Chief Secretary, Punjab-cum-Financial Commissioner (Development).
“We perceive the commercial banks might have added the term loan (long-term loan) availed by a particular farmer into his crop loan account for the purpose of waiver, which resulted in higher payout by the state government,” he added.
“Secondly, the public and private sector banks might have done over-lending to marginal farmers. We are doing an internal audit. We are also planning to do similar audit in case of small farmers who were covered under the crop-waiver scheme and took loans from cooperative and commercial banks,” Khanna said on the sidelines of state credit seminar organised by Nabard. Small farmers are those whose landholding is less than five acres.
The total institutional debt of farmers in the state is Rs 73,000 crore, availed by almost 45 lakh farmers. Besides this, farmers have availed loans from private moneylenders and arhtiyas (commission agents). “If we add that, the total credit to the farming community will cross over Rs 1 lakh crore,” he said.
Earlier, Punjab Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa requested the banks to stop giving loans for purchasing tractors as it is one of the reasons for indebtedness. He asked the banks to be cautious while lending.
Meanwhile, Nabard has projected a credit potential of Rs 2,27,935 crore during 2019-20 in the state under priority sector. This represents a growth of 5% over the projections of 2018-19 of the aggregate credit potential of Rs 1,98,737 crore.
Audit revelation
Per farmer waiver (average)
Cooperative banks: Rs 58,000
Commercial banks (public/pvt): Rs 1.64 lakh
Total amount waived: Rs 4,500 crore
Farmers benefitted: 5 lakh (approximately)