Rs 30 Thousand Crore Loans Fraud, Andhra Pradesh To Put Up List

[Spartan]

More and more frauds are surfacing in the crop loans sanctioned by nationalised banks in Andhra Pradesh. According to a top official of the AP government, crop loans worth around Rs 30,000 crore, of the total Rs 60,000-crore loans given to  farmers in the last Kharif season, were fraudulent. 

 

The frauds came to light  when officials looked into  details of the loans. An official  revealed that one nationalised bank in Bellary, Karnataka,  had given crop loans for 30,000 acres in Anantapur which  is against banking rules.

 

He said that these farmers were not eligible to get waiver as announced by the AP government. Banks can only give Rs 24,000 loan per acre, but some banks have given up to Rs 75,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

 

Gold loans of around Rs 10,000 crore given to farmers were also found to be fraud, said an official. He said that the government has details of  farmers who had availed of the loans from various banks in the state. Now, banks are preparing the list of eligible farmers to get the the amount under the waiver of farm loans scheme.

 

According to the official, many bank officers may be  in trouble for violating  banking rules in sanctioning crop loans to farmers. He said that the government will pay only eligible farmers and genuine loanees.

 

He said that they were surprised to know that  banks in Delhi, had  given Rs 30,000 crore crop loans. He said in  2011, the Centre had  set targets for  banks for giving loans in priority sectors like agriculture. To reach the targets, banks started giving loans to the farmers by violating rules.

 

Meanwhile,  vice-chairman of the AP Planning Board and chairman of the state-level Grievance Redressal Committee C. Kutumba Rao, speaking to media on Thursday , said that banks will submit the final list of eligible farmers on September 11 or 12.

 

Subsequently, the list will be uploaded on the website and the government will start paying from the end of this month. Reiterating that the state-level Grievance Redressal Committee is only for bankers and for farmers, he said  banks having doubts about  identifying  eligible farmers  can approach the committee for clarification.