FinMin yet to make recovery from ineligible under debt waiver

A Parliamentary Panel today said it is "perturbed" with the Finance Ministry over its delay in recovering the money given to ineligible persons under the Rs 68,376 crore farm debt waiver scheme in 2008.
"...Committee are perturbed to find that while the recovery process was itself initiated on January 11, 2013 after the lapse of three years since the closing of the scheme and that too after being pointed out by the Audit, full amount has since not been recovered in several cases," Public Account Committee said in a report tabled in Parliament.
These remarks are based on the Action Taken Report furnished by the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance.

Government had announced the Agriculture Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme (ADWDRS) for farmers in February 2008 to provide them relief by declogging the line of credit to catalyse flow of credit to the sector and enhance farm production and productivity.
The debt waiver was to be completed by June 30, 2008 while the debt relief was extended up to June 30 2010.
About 3.69 crore small and medium farmers' accounts and 0.60 crore other farmers accounts were to be covered under the scheme with a cash outgo of Rs 60,416 crore and Rs 7,960 crore respectively, totalling Rs 68,376 crore.

As per the report, a total recovery from lending institutions has been to the extent of Rs 627.68 crore against Rs 666.72 crore.

The panel, headed by K V Thomas, said: "For instance, out of Rs 204.3 crore which was granted to ineligible persons, an amount of Rs 136.59 crore only has been recovered."
Further, it said, out of Rs 73.8 crore where excess benefits were extended to the beneficiaries only Rs 36.42 crore could be recovered.
The committee, it said, are dismayed to note that whereas less entitled benefits were extended to the beneficiaries, in 78,129 cases amounting to Rs 40.86 crore, benefits have been released by the lending institutions to the tune of Rs 3.4 crore only in 1,353 cases.

"Moreover, in 32,748 cases amounting to Rs 68.28 crore, where benefits were not given to eligible persons, only 458 cases Rs 0.8 crore has been released by lending institutions," it said.