Funds worth Rs 25,000 crore, allocated to three-lakh self-help groups (SHGs) in Odisha, are allegedly being diverted to ‘moneylenders’, who, according to the BJP, are loaning it to the farmers in the State on “very high interest rates”, contributing to their debts and forcing as many as 18 farmers to commit suicide in the last one month.
In a State which is to go to the polls in 2019, the BJP has been taking on the Naveen Patnaik-helmed Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Government head-on with charges of excessive neglect of farmers and the health sector, and giving little attention to the “high-level of unemployment” in the State.
“There is a scam of self-help groups of women in the State where money provided to the SHGs is diverted to moneylenders who make enormous ill-gotten profit by loaning that money to farmers at over 100 per cent interest per annum,” alleged BJP General Secretary Arun Singh, who is also in-charge of the eastern State.
SHGs, numbering around three-lakh and mainly comprising women, are provided around Rs 25,000 crore annually of which Rs 12,000 crore come from the State Government and the rest from the rural banks. The activities of these groups are knitting, stitching or making eatables like ‘Papad’ to generate additional income for women in villages. There are “a minimum of ten self-help groups in a village”.
Talking to The Pioneer, Singh said while the SHGs receive the funds at the rate of six to seven per cent, the money that lands at the door of ‘Sahukars’ (moneylenders) is loaned to farmers at over 100 per cent annual interest rate. The BJP State in-charge said around 70 to 80 per cent of the funds reaches ‘Sahukars’.
“There is a clear nexus between these SHGs and the Naveen Patnaik Government,” Singh said suggesting that these groups work for the BJD.
He sought to compare Odisha with the BJP-run Madhya Pradesh where he maintained farmers receive interest-free loan and Chhattisgarh, where farmers even get ‘bonus on the paddy purchase’. In Odisha, Singh alleged there was no loan offered to farmers for seeds and pesticides. The BJP is going to step up its agitation against the Patnaik Government with district-level three-day movement, starting December 20.
The issues raised by the BJP would be that of farmers’ suicides, unavailability of doctors and medicines in state hospitals, ‘Ration card scam’ and ‘rising unemployment’ in the State. In October, the BJP undertook an agitation against the BJD Government at the ‘Mandal levels’.
The BJP leader counted 18 farmers’ death in last one month with Bargarh district in the North-West registering 12 deaths and Ganjam, home district of the Chief Minister, in the South-East, witnessing two deaths. Besides, Bolangir, Nuapada and Balasore, he said, also saw one farmer each committing suicide. Last year, Singh said a total of 158 farmers killed themselves in Odisha. “Farmers are in the trap of money lenders,” he said and held the BJD Government’s policies accountable for farmers’ death in the State.
To bolster his party’s standing vis-à-vis the Patnaik Government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Bargarh and Paradip this year with the party also organising its National Executive in the State Capital.
The BJP claims that internal dissatisfaction is on the rise in the BJD and some of its key leaders “may cross over’” to the BJP before 2019 when State Assembly polls are due.