The former Chief Minister and BJP leader Jagadish Shettar has alleged that the State government is pressuring urban credit cooperative banks and societies to lend to street vendors under the Badavara Bandhu scheme, in the wake of its poor implementation.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Mr. Shettar said that the government is pushing cooperative banks and societies into risk as they have no guarantee of repayment. The government has no common sense as these societies would not lend to those who are not their members, he said.
According to Mr. Shettar, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy wishes to gain political mileage from this scheme without spending any money from government kitty. Instead of risking the fiscal condition of cooperative banks and societies, the government should guarantee repayment from borrowers. Unless the government takes such action, the scheme will not succeed, though it has been started with good intention, he added.
Apart from risking their money, these institutions have no freedom of selecting beneficiaries.
The credit facility should be extended to those short-listed by the officials of the Cooperative Department, he said and added that such a condition did not ensure that they would get their money back.
Of the 16,000 beneficiaries listed out by the department in Dharwad district, only 500 have benefited out of this scheme from three such societies. In this wake, the officials of the Cooperative Department are harassing these societies as the government has threatened the former of initiating strict action against them for failing to implement the scheme, which will close by March-end, Mr. Shettar said.