1. Home
  2. India
  3. Distressed Andhra Pradesh farmers selling organs to escape debt trap

Distressed Andhra Pradesh farmers selling organs to escape debt trap

[email protected] (TNN)
March 7, 2013

Andhra_Pradesh_farmer

New Delhi, Mar 7: Almost five years after the UPA government allocated the lion's share of its Rs 52,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme to Andhra Pradesh, reports are emerging from the state that distressed farmers are selling their organs to come out of the agricultural debt trap.

Three states - Andhra Pradesh, UP and Maharashtra - had got almost 57% of the Rs 52,000 crore package meant for all 35 states and Union Territories. Disbursal in Andhra Pradesh was Rs 11,000 crore while it was Rs 9,095 crore in UP and Rs 8,900 crore in Maharashtra.

The farm loan waiver has been cited as one of the main vote-catchers for the Congress in the 2009 LokSabha polls and this was vindicated in the party's handsome performance in the three states with the largest allocations. While Congress bagged 31 seats in Andhra, it got 22 in UP and 16 in Maharashtra, a performance which facilitated formation of the second UPA government at the Centre.

In Andhra Pradesh, around 77 lakh farmers cornered more than Rs 11,000 crore, almost 21% of the total farm loan waiver package. But as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report reveals, a huge number of ineligible farmers were allowed waiver while many marginal and small farmers were denied the benefit and they continued to remain in a debt trap.

CAG detected tampering with loan records, alteration in ledgers and changing records where non-agricultural loans were converted into agricultural loans.

In one such instance, the auditor pointed out how the AP Grameen Bank in Ballikurava had altered land holdings of at least 17 loanees so as to alter their category and make them eligible for full waiver in the marginal farmer category.

These irregularities were noticed not just in Andhra Pradesh but across several states were sample study was carried out by the auditor.

The CAG's sample study was carried out over 715 bank branches in 92 districts of 25 states involving more than 80,000 farmers' loan accounts. The disbursement to these farmers amounted to Rs 330 crore.

In Andhra Pradesh, scrutiny of 3,200 loan accounts revealed that in at least 132 cases, ineligible benefits were allowed, highest among all states bar J&K where the sample study found ineligible benefits were allowed to 153 farmers. In close to 100 cases in Andhra Pradesh, the CAG found benefits extended to farmers on loans which were not disbursed in the first place.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
July 31,2020

New Delhi, Jul 31: Air India has operated more than 2800 flights and flown over 3 lakh passengers worldwide till now under the Vande Bharat Mission.

"Air India under Vande Bharat Mission Operated more than 2800 flights and flown more than 3 lakh, 80 thousand passengers worldwide till now," Air India said in a tweet on Thursday.

The fifth phase of the Government of India's 'Vande Bharat' mission, aimed at evacuating Indian nationals stranded in various foreign countries owing to restrictions on air travel, will begin early next month, August 1.

"Under Vande Bharat Mission, we have already brought back more than 2.5 lakh stranded Indians from 53 commies," Air India had earlier said in a statement.

Over 7.88 lakh Indians stranded abroad due to coronavirus pandemic have returned under Vande Bharat Mission till July 22, Ministry of External Affairs had said.

The government started Vande Bharat Mission on May 7.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 6,2020

New Delhi, Jun 6: With 9,887 new positive cases reported in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 count touched 2,36,657 on Saturday surpassing Italy's latest tally of over 2.34 lakh, taking India to the sixth spot among countries with the highest caseloads of the virus.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said that India registered a spike of 9887 new cases and 294 deaths in the past 24 hours taking the tally to 1,15,942 active cases and 6642 deaths.

Today's count was the highest single-day spike in the country, which has now overtaken Italy, according to the tally posted by the Johns Hopkins University which posted that globally the coronavirus had infected over 66.64 lakh people and claimed over 3.91 lakh lives so far.

In india, the MoHFW informed that 1,14,073 persons have been cured/discharged/migrated so far.

Maharashtra remains the worst-hit State as the total number of COVID-19 positive cases reached 80,229. While the total number of active cases in the state stands at 42,224.

In Tamil Nadu, 28,694 cases have been detected so far while Delhi has reported 26,334 coronavirus cases.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
March 25,2020

New Delhi, Mar 25: The Indian Rail Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on Wednesday appealed to the people not to cancel their e-tickets on their own in case of trains being cancelled by the national transporter due to nation-wide lockdown to help curb the spread of novel coronavirus pandemic.

Clearing the doubts of the railway passengers, IRCTC spokesperson Siddharth Singh said, "Doubts have been raised regarding cancellation of e-tickets subsequent to the halting of railway passenger trains.

"It may be submitted that for trains cancelled by the railways in its complete run, refund on e-tickets is full and automatic. In this case, no cancellation exercise is required to be done on the part of the user," he said.

The IRCTC official said that if user cancels his e-ticket in situations of train cancellations, there are chances he may get "less refund". "Hence passengers are advised not to cancel e-tickets on their own for those trains which have been cancelled by the railways," he said.

He also said that the refund amount will be credited to the user account used for booking e-tickets automatically and no charges will be deducted by the railways in case of train cancellation.

His remarks came as the national transporter announced the suspension of the passenger, mail and express services from March 23 till March 31. However, the railways extended the suspension of services till April 14 in the wake of the three week lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from March 25 during his second special address to the nation on Tuesday night.

The railways has cancelled over 13,600 passengers trains across the country in a bid to combat the spread of novel coronavirus. Only freight trains are running to ensure the supply of essential services. About 9,000 freight trains are transporting essential items every day across the country.

On Wednesday, India recorded 562 cases of COVID-19 with 10 deaths.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.