CHENNAI: The department of cooperation on Thursday revoked the waiver of gold loans to 37,984 persons after they were found to be employees of cooperative societies, State and Central governments and their undertakings, and pensioners. This means the department will now retrieve the loan amount of a whopping Rs 160 crore which had been waived for these persons since February this year.
In a recent order, A Shanmuga Sundaram, Registrar of Cooperative Societies ordered the revocation of the loan waiver and directed the joint registrar of cooperative societies in each district to incorporate the changes in the official records. Further, the order asked the joint registrars to pass the orders to cancel the waiver certificates.
A joint registrar said, “If a beneficiary is found to have furnished incorrect information to avail the waiver, the loan will be recovered in accordance with the existing procedure.” In November last year, the State government passed a G.O. earmarking Rs 6,000 crore for waiving off loans availed by mortgaging gold up to 40 grams till March 31, 2021. Initially, it was estimated that 13.5 to 14 lakh loanees would be eligible to avail the benefit.
Later, in January this year, the government issued guidelines, which said family members of government employees, cooperative societies, and pensioners would not be eligible for the waiver. In addition, beneficiaries of crop loan waiver in 2021, NPHHNC ration card holders (no commodity card), and those who have not linked their ration card number and Aadhaar with their jewel loan account were also made ineligible to avail the benefits.
Accordingly, a team of officials comprising a cooperative audit department was deployed to each district other than their home district to scrutinise the records. Since February, waiver certificates and jewels have been handed over to beneficiaries. As of May, 12.5 lakh persons were identified to benefit.
According to official sources, the laxity of cooperative banks in maintaining the database of customers is one of the reasons for many government employees got the benefits of the scheme.
“When a person pledges gold seeking loan under the pretext of cultivating paddy, we have no option to verify if he is a government employee or not. The bank only requires a referral signature from a member from the same cooperative society,” said an official from an urban co-operative bank in Thanjavur.
Each cooperative bank maintains records in a different format and there were no uniform rules for the banks. “There were no proper records for those who availed loans before 2010,” the official added. Officials from the cooperation department remain tight-lipped and could not be reached.