NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General
(CAG) has pointed out serious flaws in the implementation of the over
Rs 52,000 crore farm debt-waiver scheme in a finding that can annoy the
UPA government besides raising doubts whether it can continue to reap
political dividends from the populist programme which turned out to be
the gamechanger for the ruling coalition in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
In a draft inspection report sent to the finance ministry seeking its comments, the federal auditor has pointed out that beneficiaries of the scheme were selected at random and were concentrated in certain pockets, while those who really deserved the relief were inexplicably left out.
Sources said the final report is likely to be completed by end-October, and the auditor has planned to table the final report in the winter session of Parliament.
The audit into the debt waiver has been a mega exercise, with the CAG taking RBI's help to look into the books of accounts of government banks, regional rural banks and the cooperative banks that had disbursed the relief. The auditor has carried out field visits to corroborate its findings with sample surveys.
Sources said the draft report has pointed out major deficiencies in identifying beneficiaries, expressing the fear that "undeserving farmers" may have cornered the bulk of the waiver at the cost of the deserving beneficiaries belonging to the "small and marginal" category.
The findings are contrary to the government's repeated claims in Parliament that benefits accrued only to the eligible.
Debts of more than 3.7 crore farmers were written off by the government under this scheme that brought windfall gains to the Congress. Andhra Pradesh, which accounted for around Rs 11,000 crore of the total disbursal, elected 33 Congress MPs to the Lok Sabha. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, where the scheme was also implemented, too, rewarded the party handsomely. The three states together elected 69 of the 207 MPs elected to Lok Sabha on Congress ticket.
Announced just ahead of the 2009 parliamentary polls, the scheme wrote off the loan liabilities of "eligible" farmers pending till then.
In response to a Parliament question earlier, the finance ministry had stated that Andhra extended the maximum waiver of more than Rs 11,000 crore with about 80 lakh farmers benefiting, followed by UP — Rs 10,000 crore to at least 54 lakh farmers — and Maharashtra disbursed Rs 9,000 crore to over 42 lakh farm hands.
In a draft inspection report sent to the finance ministry seeking its comments, the federal auditor has pointed out that beneficiaries of the scheme were selected at random and were concentrated in certain pockets, while those who really deserved the relief were inexplicably left out.
Sources said the final report is likely to be completed by end-October, and the auditor has planned to table the final report in the winter session of Parliament.
The audit into the debt waiver has been a mega exercise, with the CAG taking RBI's help to look into the books of accounts of government banks, regional rural banks and the cooperative banks that had disbursed the relief. The auditor has carried out field visits to corroborate its findings with sample surveys.
Sources said the draft report has pointed out major deficiencies in identifying beneficiaries, expressing the fear that "undeserving farmers" may have cornered the bulk of the waiver at the cost of the deserving beneficiaries belonging to the "small and marginal" category.
The findings are contrary to the government's repeated claims in Parliament that benefits accrued only to the eligible.
Debts of more than 3.7 crore farmers were written off by the government under this scheme that brought windfall gains to the Congress. Andhra Pradesh, which accounted for around Rs 11,000 crore of the total disbursal, elected 33 Congress MPs to the Lok Sabha. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, where the scheme was also implemented, too, rewarded the party handsomely. The three states together elected 69 of the 207 MPs elected to Lok Sabha on Congress ticket.
Announced just ahead of the 2009 parliamentary polls, the scheme wrote off the loan liabilities of "eligible" farmers pending till then.
In response to a Parliament question earlier, the finance ministry had stated that Andhra extended the maximum waiver of more than Rs 11,000 crore with about 80 lakh farmers benefiting, followed by UP — Rs 10,000 crore to at least 54 lakh farmers — and Maharashtra disbursed Rs 9,000 crore to over 42 lakh farm hands.
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