30% bank data for Maharashtra farmer loan waivers inaccurate, will delay disbursement

Information provided by nationalised banks have glaring errors or are incomplete, so tough to process cases, says state IT department

The Maharashtra government is struggling with the implementation of its farmer loan waiver scheme as 30 per cent of the data provided by nationalised banks have glaring errors or are incomplete.

HT File photo for representation

The inaccurate data has delayed the waiver of loans as the state’s information technology (IT) department is finding it difficult to verify bank details with applications received from farmers.

Of the 26 lakh account details given, 30 per cent is inaccurate, the IT department said. It has suggested that the state cooperation department call a meeting of bank officials to solve the problem.

The state has received 56.59 lakh applications from 77.27 lakh farmers for its farmer loan waiver scheme, but only 15 lakh accounts have been found eligible for further processing.

“The job of the IT department is getting more and more difficult with each passing day because of the poor quality of data provided by banks. Our system has identified many errors in the information provided, which obviously delays completing the verification process,” said VK Gautam, principal secretary, IT.

In many cases, it was found that the principal and interest amount did not match with the total loan amount. There are cases where the bank data shows that a farmer’s loan amount has been recovered in one place, but that it is overdue in another place, he said.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has already said that nationalised and district cooperative banks are trying to misuse the state’s farmer loan waiver scheme by using fake accounts of farmers who have already benefited from the 2008-09 loan waiver scheme. The state will write to the central government for action against such banks, the CM has said.

Following protests from the agrarian community, the state government declared a Rs 34,022-crore loan waiver package a few months ago. On October 18, the state started distributing ‘no loan pending’ certificates to farmers found eligible for the scheme.

Another problem has been the Aadhaar details of the president and vice-president of primary agricultural credit societies (PACS), which have refused to share it with the state cooperation department. As a result, the government has declared the president and vice-president of PACS ineligible for loan waivers. Without Aadhaar details, the IT department may not be able to complete the eligibility process, Gautam said. There are around 21,000 PACS across the state.