Adilabad: Agri society staff availed crop loans in names of dead farmers
ADILABAD: A scam in the Rebbena primary agriculture cooperative society (PACS) has come to the fore where the staff renewed the crop loans of farmers who died long back, and got loan waivers in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district by tampering with records. The fraud would be worth around Rs 3 crore to Rs 5 crore.
In some cases, fresh accounts were opened in other banks. The staff regularly took the loans and even got the loan waivers.
The issue came to light when some crop loans were not waived even though loan amounts were below Rs 2 lakh. Farmers asked the agriculture officials why their crop loan was not waived. They did not know that crop loans were taken on their closed accounts.
Sanjeev Kumar Jaiswal of Nambala asked the society staff why he did not get the loan waiver though he had no pending loan. Asifabad RDO Lokeshwar Rao conducted an inquiry and found that the Rebbena society CEO Santosh had Santhosh, committed the fraud with the help of other staff. He was suspended on August 17.
Farmers were shocked to learn that they had pending loans of more than Rs 2 lakh each in the Rebbena PACS in addition to the crop loans they took from other banks.
The inquiry revealed that the CEO continued the accounts of farmers who closed their accounts and of even those who died years back and took loans in their names.
The staff showed 370 live accounts though the total accounts were above 500. Some of them closed their bank accounts in society and opened new accounts in other banks. The fraud involved nearly 50 farmers who had accounts in the PACS.
