THE farmer loan waiver which the UPA government projected as one mega scheme that brought it back to power in 2009 has now become one mega scam.
No one is guessing the money involved, not even the Comptroller and Auditor General of India which blew the whistle on the scam. A whopping Rs 52,275 crore was disbursed since the scheme was announced five years ago. This was aimed at relieving the debt burden of 3.45 crore farmers. According to a draft CAG report, revealed in a section of the media, it examined one lakh records. Senior officials in the Finance Ministry have conceded that 8-10 per cent of the farmers failed to get the benefit, which works out to 24 lakh people. Another 6-7 per cent of the recipients are ineligible and shared the loot. In total, 14-17 per cent of the money has prima facie gone into wrong hands, which is about a fifth of the disbursed amount.
The UPA government announced the farmer loan waiver scheme just ahead of the last general elections. It was considered a master stroke and it probably brought the Congress party some seats.
The then Finance Minister P Chidambaram took a huge moral high ground and asked every MP to declare his position—for or against the farmer. Now, five years later, the nation can definitely ask every UPA minister led by the fraudulent Finance Minister to stand up and clarify to the Indians on whose side they are. Whether it is NREGA or any other welfare scheme, the UPA government has flouted the norms to grease the pockets of a few in the party while throwing crumbs to the intended beneficiaries. Today there is such a huge tamasha going on in the name of subsidy for the extra LPG cylinders to BPL families. Right here in the capital, people are complaining how the authorities are turning away bona fide people while registering the claims of those not even entitled. Here again political affiliations decide the final recipient.
The CAG report on farmer loan waiver, to be tabled in this session of parliament has squarely blamed the government for the fund misuse in the loan waiver scheme. It said “The magnitude of the problem can be estimated by the fact that out of around 1 lakh accounts scrutinised in 800 bank branches, there were wrongdoings in as many as 20,000 accounts. It shows there was an absolute lack of monitoring and administration of this scheme.” The CAG has expressed its inability, owing to lack of manpower, to check on each and every transaction. Some of the money has gone into micro finance institutions (MFI) which were not even part of the scheme. According to a report, Rs 150 crore have been paid to half a dozen MFI. Why the money, intended for individual farmers, was paid to the institutions is not explained and objections were not raised in the routine auditing. The nationalised rural banks and cooperatives too are part of the loot. Officials, politicians and bank managers seemed to have shared the booty. The finance ministry and the RBI have launched enquiries in a cosmetic attempt to weather the storm sure to brew in parliament. There is no idea on how a course correction can be done. Prof M S Swaminathan, a Rajya Sabha MP and world renowned agricultural scientist has called the failure of the loan waiver scheme a “rape of the public.”
What is even more serious is the future of the cash transfer scheme. Here again the government has announced the dole just a year ahead of the General Elections in India. Given the track record of insatiable greed of the Congress party leadership and the government led by it, there is no guessing on how much of this cash, the honest, hard working Indians’ contribution to the state is going to travel to secret foreign accounts and tax havens.
The UPA under Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi has lost even the remotest semblance to honesty and integrity. Those in the helm have looted the public money in a way not witnessed even in decadent dictatorships. The government has revealed total inertia in tracking the money illegally stashed abroad. In the absence of a bull-dog opposition this government has got away with sin after sin with the CAG alone acting as the conscience keeper of the nation. The present chief of the CAG Vinod Rai deserves a salute from the Indians. He is truly a worthy candidate for Bharat Ratna, for his selfless dedication to his job.
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