Farmers loan waiver: Banks bungle loan waiver sop, collect incorrect data
Hyderabad: Instead of account numbers, bank officials were shocked to find cellphone numbers and bank balance figures of farmers in the data for the farm loan waiver scheme.
Some banks had engaged students to enter data for finalisation of the eligible farmers’ list for the scheme.
The data was relatively simple like bank account numbers, Aadhaar card numbers, ration card details and so on.
However, some students entered the account holders’ cellphone numbers and even bank balance figures instead of bank account numbers.
When bank officials tried to tally the data for the loan waiver scheme, they found that around 16.21 lakh account numbers mismatched.
During verification, they found cellphone numbers and bank balance figures in place of bank account numbers.
In some accounts, the names of farmers were also entered wrong.
The issue becomes serious in light of the fact that the system will reject the account if any data is entered wrong.
AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had given a deadline of October 27 to the bankers to hand over the final list of eligible farmers.
The bankers on Monday sent a communication to the AP finance department stating that 16.21 lakh accounts had mismatched data and about 15 lakh accounts had no Aadhaar numbers.
The finance department has sent back these 30 lakh accounts for correcting the data.
The bankers will now have to submit the final list by October 30.
AP finance department officials said that it would not be possible to correct data of 30 lakh accounts in just three days and it might not be possible for the banks to give a final list of farmers by October 30.
