Business

Call to rectify anomalies in loan waiver scheme

KOCHI: Kerala State Cooperative Marketing Societies Association chairman G. Sugunan has alleged that the State government was not taking adequate steps for implementing the farm loan waiver scheme.

At a press conference here, Mr. Sugunan said the government was trying to deny the benefit on certain technical grounds to most of the eligible farmers.

He demanded that the government include all farm loans up to March 31, 2008, in the loan waiver scheme. There was no justification to exclude those farmers who had repaid part of the loans as many of them had taken loans from elsewhere for repayment, the association chairman said. It was a paradox that the scheme had been denied to those who tried to repay the loan while others who ignored repayment were brought under the waiver.

The Union Finance Minister’s statement that the Centre had not received any information from the State on the anomalies in the loan waiver scheme needed attention. The State government had the responsibility to bring the anomalies to the Centre’s notice, Mr. Sugunan said.

He also alleged that the State was unwilling to sign the agreement with Nabard for transfer of Rs.1,000 crore set apart for the cooperative sector, on the basis of the Vaidyanathan report. The agreement should have been signed before July 5 but the State government was reluctant as it feared that it would have to sanction autonomy for the cooperative sector. The government’s move had affected the loan availability to thousands of farmers, Mr. Sugunan added.

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