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

Bhubaneswar: Despite instances of suicides by farmers rocking Odisha in a big way, only a little over half of the farmers in the State could avail institutional concessional credit support from the Odisha government to raise their crops. The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme has also been found floundering here.

As per the audit findings of the CAG report on Revenue and Economic sector in Odisha, while only 55 per cent of the farmers registered in the PACS (Primary Agriculture Credit Societies) avail the State's government's concessional farm loans, the outreach of Kiasn Credit Card (KKC) has also been plagued by heavy shortfall.

WHY THE HALF SHOW IN FARM CREDIT?

A detailed glance at the facts unearthed by CAG reveals that the credit plan size by the State government itself is tailored to benefit only little over half of the farmers.

THE EVIDENCE: The CAG findings show that while the target realised in disbursement of concessional crop loan to farmers had been ranging from 81 per cent to 98 per cent of annual target amount fixed, the physical achievement with regard to number of farmers availing the benefit hovered between 55 -57 per cent.

This shows the amount earmarked for disbursement of crop loans to farmers via the PACS were an underassessment of the real credit need of over 55 lakh farmers in the State. (See the image below).

WHY FARMERS IN STRESS?  

THE DOUBLE GAME: The details of audit findings that dealt a lethal blow to the farmers in the State (2015 and 2016 saw large-scale suicides by farmers). Why? CAG finds out the gross mismanagement.

• Scrutiny of records revealed that Revenue &Disaster and Management Dept on 11 March 2016 declared 29,077 villages under 233 blocks and 404 wards of 55 Urban Local Bodies in 27 districts of the State as drought affected and having sustained crop loss of 33per cent and above during Kharif season 2015.
• The District Collectors were required to issue ‘annewari’ certificates within 31 March 2016, thereby enabling the farmers to avail the benefit of MTL(medium-term loan) on the their short term loans (STL).
• However, it was observed that except Bargarh, no other district had completed the required formalities to issue ‘annewari’ certificate within 31 March 2016e., within the currency period for Kharif 2015. Significantly, Bargarh recorded highest cases of farmer suicides in year 2015.
• How big the blow: The OSCB assessed that STL worth Rs2,500 crore advanced during Kharif 2015 would be converted as MTL in affected districts. In the meantime, out of 32.01lakh expected beneficiary farmers, 24.06 lakh farmers (75.16per cent) had already repaid their loans to avoid penal interest liability as furnished by OSCB.
• Thus, due to non-issue of ‘annewari’ certificate by the District Collector, conversion of STL of Rs 2,500 crore to MTL under the scheme could not be carried out and thus, denied the benefits of conversion to the loanee farmers.

MORE SKELETONS IN CUPBOARD

• Audit scrutinised records of nine branches of DCCB and 27 PACS in nine test-checked districts and observed that an amount of Rs 445.26 crore was shown as disbursed to 1,56lakh farmers as agriculture loans during 2014-18.
• Of the above, an amount of96 crore (38.84 per cent) was disbursed during the said period for repayment of earlier crop loans to 59,696 farmers.

• In this process, the adjustment of old loan was made by sanctioning a new loan with book adjustment without actual outflow of money.
• Consequently, achievement of fresh crop loan disbursement had been reported by OSCB taking such instances into account.
• Odisha State Cooperative Bank (OSCB) had claimed interest subvention of Rs1,685.63 crore for crop loan disbursed at ground level for the financial years of 2014-18, including Rs392.06 crore  excess claim beyond the due dates.
• Out of the excess claim of06 crore, a sum of`357.68 crore had already been paid by Government to OSCB as of October 2019 which resulted in extension of undue benefit to the OSCB.
• This shows farmers didn't get their due but OSCB reaped a rich harvest.
• Audit test-checked 6,991 out of 39,165 land records of farmer members in27 PACS and noticed that no such verification had been done by Revenue Authorities in the land register. Audit scrutinised 171 land records of55 farmer members as noted in the land register and found that, in 71 cases, the land details given by the farmers did not match with Bhulekh records maintained by the R&DMD.
• During the years 2014-15 and 2017-18, the issue of KCCs in the State decreased to 0.78 lakh from 1.67 lakh. OSCB stated that it was due to closure of non-functional
• Further, the scheme inter alia fixed a target for issue of two lakh cards per These targets fell within a range of 18.01 to 21.51per cent of the eligible farmers every year.
• However, these targets were not achieved, with shortfall ranging from 16.50 to 61.00 per cent during the said period. This indicated that the farmer members, who had not been issued with KCCs, could not benefit from the scheme.

• The CAG also observed that OSCB failed to activate the 18.48 lakh RuPay Kisan Cards within the date of validity.
• Further, since the OSCB did not initiate any steps to subsequently revalidate such cards by extending the date of expiry, after lapse of more than two years, possibility of using such cards were very
• As a result, farmer members of PACS and non-defaulter KCC holders were not only deprived of drawing funds as per stated policy/ instructions to OSCB/ DCCBs/ PACS, but the entire expenditure of Rs17.43 crore was rendered wasteful.