Even a week after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis handed over loan waiver certificates to farmers, the State government has failed to deposit money into the loan accounts.
Mr. Fadnavis has announced that the amount for loan waivers would be deposited directly into the accounts of farmers on October 18. Officials have blamed the lack of coordination between the State Cooperation Department and Information & Technology Department for the delay.
The State government’s ₹34,022-crore loan waiver scheme has been courting controversy ever since it was announced on June 24 this year. On July 24, the government launched an online application system for farmers to enroll themselves for the scheme.
During Deepavali, the State government put out a list of 8.40 lakh beneficiaries who would receive loan waiver certificates. It also declared that₹4,000 crore was made available to waive loans. Initially, the money transfer was delayed as banks closed for Deepavali.
However, while scrutinising the online forms, it was found that 30% of the 26 lakh forms had anomalies. The bank accounts of several farmers were linked to the same Aadhaar card. Many farmers also shared the same bank account.
Sources in the State Cooperation Department confirmed that no money has been deposited into the bank accounts as the government is still trying to iron out the irregularities.
An official said, “A special software has been developed to scrutinise the forms. Several applications have been rejected based on errors such as introduction of a single special character. There is no mechanism to sort out the problem.”
Despite knowing from the start that the implementation of the scheme would require the combined efforts of the two departments, the IT department was given the upper hand over the cooperation department.
“The IT department has no clear knowledge of the scheme or the cooperation sector. Such is the situation that even officers are clueless about the workings of the scheme,” said an official.