Odisha Cooperative Dept in Mess, Farmers In Great Stress: CAG |OTV News

Bhubaneswar: Regardless of cases of suicides by farmers rocking Odisha in a giant approach, solely somewhat over half of the farmers within the State might avail institutional concessional credit score help from the Odisha authorities to boost their crops. The Kisan Credit score Card (KCC) scheme has additionally been discovered floundering right here.

As per the audit findings of the CAG report on Income and Financial sector in Odisha, whereas solely 55 per cent of the farmers registered within the PACS (Major Agriculture Credit score Societies) avail the State’s authorities’s concessional farm loans, the outreach of Kiasn Credit score Card (KKC) has additionally been affected by heavy shortfall.

WHY THE HALF SHOW IN FARM CREDIT?

An in depth look on the information unearthed by CAG reveals that the credit score plan dimension by the State authorities itself is tailor-made to learn solely little over half of the farmers.

THE EVIDENCE: The CAG findings present that whereas the goal realised in disbursement of concessional crop mortgage to farmers had been starting from 81 per cent to 98 per cent of annual goal quantity fastened, the bodily achievement with regard to variety of farmers availing the profit hovered between 55 -57 per cent.

This reveals the quantity earmarked for disbursement of crop loans to farmers by way of the PACS had been an underassessment of the true credit score want of over 55 lakh farmers within the State. (See the picture under).

WHY FARMERS IN STRESS?  

THE DOUBLE GAME: The main points of audit findings that dealt a deadly blow to the farmers within the State (2015 and 2016 noticed large-scale suicides by farmers). Why? CAG finds out the gross mismanagement.

• Scrutiny of information revealed that Income &Catastrophe and Administration Dept on 11 March 2016 declared 29,077 villages underneath 233 blocks and 404 wards of 55 City Native Our bodies in 27 districts of the State as drought affected and having sustained crop lack of 33per cent and above throughout Kharif season 2015.
• The District Collectors had been required to problem ‘annewari’ certificates inside 31 March 2016, thereby enabling the farmers to avail the good thing about MTL(medium-term mortgage) on the their quick time period loans (STL).
• Nonetheless, it was noticed that besides Bargarh, no different district had accomplished the required formalities to problem ‘annewari’ certificates inside 31 March 2016e., throughout the forex interval for Kharif 2015. Considerably, Bargarh recorded highest instances of farmer suicides in 12 months 2015.
• How massive the blow: The OSCB assessed that STL price Rs2,500 crore superior throughout Kharif 2015 could be transformed as MTL in affected districts. Within the meantime, out of 32.01lakh anticipated beneficiary farmers, 24.06 lakh farmers (75.16per cent) had already repaid their loans to keep away from penal curiosity legal responsibility as furnished by OSCB.
• Thus, because of non-issue of ‘annewari’ certificates by the District Collector, conversion of STL of Rs 2,500 crore to MTL underneath the scheme couldn’t be carried out and thus, denied the advantages of conversion to the loanee farmers.

MORE SKELETONS IN CUPBOARD

• Audit scrutinised information of 9 branches of DCCB and 27 PACS in 9 test-checked districts and noticed that an quantity of Rs 445.26 crore was proven as disbursed to 1,56lakh farmers as agriculture loans throughout 2014-18.
• Of the above, an quantity of96 crore (38.84 per cent) was disbursed through the mentioned interval for compensation of earlier crop loans to 59,696 farmers.

• On this course of, the adjustment of previous mortgage was made by sanctioning a brand new mortgage with e-book adjustment with out precise outflow of cash.
• Consequently, achievement of contemporary crop mortgage disbursement had been reported by OSCB taking such cases under consideration.
• Odisha State Cooperative Financial institution (OSCB) had claimed curiosity subvention of Rs1,685.63 crore for crop mortgage disbursed at floor stage for the monetary years of 2014-18, together with Rs392.06 crore  extra declare past the due dates.
• Out of the surplus declare of06 crore, a sum of`357.68 crore had already been paid by Authorities to OSCB as of October 2019 which resulted in extension of undue profit to the OSCB.
• This reveals farmers didn’t get their due however OSCB reaped a wealthy harvest.
• Audit test-checked 6,991 out of 39,165 land information of farmer members in27 PACS and seen that no such verification had been carried out by Income Authorities within the land register. Audit scrutinised 171 land information of55 farmer members as famous within the land register and located that, in 71 instances, the land particulars given by the farmers didn’t match with Bhulekh information maintained by the R&DMD.
• Through the years 2014-15 and 2017-18, the problem of KCCs within the State decreased to 0.78 lakh from 1.67 lakh. OSCB said that it was because of closure of non-functional
• Additional, the scheme inter alia fastened a goal for problem of two lakh playing cards per These targets fell inside a variety of 18.01 to 21.51per cent of the eligible farmers yearly.
• Nonetheless, these targets weren’t achieved, with shortfall starting from 16.50 to 61.00 per cent through the mentioned interval. This indicated that the farmer members, who had not been issued with KCCs, couldn’t profit from the scheme.

• The CAG additionally noticed that OSCB didn’t activate the 18.48 lakh RuPay Kisan Playing cards throughout the date of validity.
• Additional, because the OSCB didn’t provoke any steps to subsequently revalidate such playing cards by extending the date of expiry, after lapse of greater than two years, chance of utilizing such playing cards had been very
• Consequently, farmer members of PACS and non-defaulter KCC holders weren’t solely disadvantaged of drawing funds as per said coverage/ directions to OSCB/ DCCBs/ PACS, however all the expenditure of Rs17.43 crore was rendered wasteful.