On Wednesday, a deceased farmer’s land in Dausa, Rajasthan was auctioned two and a half months after his death, for non-payment of the loan amount. The farmer’s family reportedly had asked for a reasonable time span to repay the loan of Rs 7 lakh but was denied by the bank. About 15 bigha 2 biswa land of the farmer was auctioned for to Rs 46 lakh in Ramgarh Pachwara village of Dausa.
According to the reports, Kajod Meena, resident of Jamun Ki Dhani of Dausa district had taken a loan of Rs 3.5 lakh under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) from the Rajasthan Marudhara Gramin Bank of Ramgarh Pachwara. The farmer could not pay the loan for several years and after 2017 the outstanding loan amount accumulated to more than Rs 7 lakh including interest and penalties.
Rajasthan | A farmer’s land was auctioned yesterday in Ramgarh Pachwara village of Dausa for non-payment of the loan amount
— ANI (@ANI) January 19, 2022
My father had taken a loan & he is dead now. We were unable to repay it & requested bank but they denied to give any chance: Pappu Lal, farmer’s son pic.twitter.com/4rdqXN8ehR
The bank issued notices to sons Rajulal and Pappulal after father Kajod Meena died last year. Due to the poor financial condition of the family, the sons also could not repay the KCC loan and the bank decided to order for attachment of the land.
Mithlesh Meena from Ramgarh Pachwara SDM office confirmed the development saying that ‘the bank had called the farmer’s family for settlement but they didn’t appear, so as per law their land was auctioned’. It is reported that the family of the farmers had remained hopeful with the promise of loan waiver made by the government a couple of years ago.
It is pertinent to note that in 2018, Rahul Gandhi in Jaipur had promised farm loan waiver within 10 days if Congress was voted to power. He specifically also mentioned that Congress was not making false promises and that it had already implemented the same in Punjab and Karnataka. He had also attacked PM Modi for writing off Rs 3.5 lakh crores of 15 industrialists and had ‘confusingly’ assumed that the loans were ‘waived off’.
BJP Spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla slammed the Congress Government for betraying the farmers and snatching away their lands. “On one hand Uttar Pradesh govt has waived loans of 36,000 cr of lakhs of farmers but Rahul Gandhi who promised loan waiver in Rajasthan in ten days publicly has betrayed farmers and today their lands are being snatched away while Gehlot govt looks on! KISAN KI DUSHMAN CONGRESS”, he tweeted.
On one hand UTTAR PRADESH govt has waived loans of 36,000 cr of lakhs of farmers but RAHUL GANDHI who promised loan waiver in Rajasthan in ten days ( publicly) has betrayed farmers & today their lands are being snatched away while Gehlot govt looks on !
— Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) January 19, 2022
KISAN KI DUSHMAN CONGRESS https://t.co/ZiwneopXP2
Misinformation about loans ‘written off’-
Rahul Gandhi has always had difficulty in understanding the difference between loans being ‘written off’ and loans being ‘waived off’. In December 2020, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that the Modi government had ‘waived off’ Rs 2,37,206 crore loan of the industrialists. According to him, the huge amount, which was ‘waive-off’ by the government, could have been provided for 11 crore families in the difficult time of COVID, each with Rs 20,000. In the financial year 2019-2020, scheduled commercial banks, both private and public sector banks, in an effort to restructure the stressed assets, had reportedly ‘written-off’ Rs 2,37,206 crores of loans.
Also, many times in the past, Gandhi has repeated the lie. According to him, the Modi government has in his tenure waived loans of 5.50 lakh crore, 3.50 lakh crore, 3.00 lakh crore. 2.50 lakh crore, 1.50 lakh crore, 1.40 lakh crore, 1.30 lakh crore, 1.10 lakh crore owed by richest industrialists.
In November 2016, Rahul Gandhi had spread lies and claimed that the Modi government had then waived off loans worth Rs 1.1 lakh crores of big industrialists. During campaigning for Gujarat assembly polls in 2017, Rahul Gandhi repeated the same trite, he inexplicably increased this figure by 20,000 Crores to Rs 1.3 lakh crores. In Karnataka, he went a step ahead and conjured up another grand figure, Rs 2.5 Lakh crores that were waived-off.
Loan Write off
In April 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had schooled Rahul Gandhi when he again tried to spread misinformation by terming ‘bad loan write off’ by banks as ‘loan waiver’. ‘Write-off’ is a process of balance sheet cleaning up exercise undertaken by banks to depict the real status of the bank’s assets and liabilities. The write-offs are not loan waivers as claimed by the Congress party and its ecosystem, she had said.
Write-offs are a purely technical, accounting entry. Loans, which may not be repaid by the borrower in the normal course of business are written off. Even when these loans are written off, various recovery procedures like recovery suits filed before the Debt Recovery Tribunal and action initiated under SARFAESI Act continue. Hence, the writing-off a loan is not simply a ‘waive-off’.
Loan waive off-
Reports mention that loan waive off is an offer made by the government to the borrower where he is no longer under burden to of paying back the loan amount. The government can offer the loan waive off considering the genuine change of the borrower’s financial condition.
After completing 2 years of office, CM Ashok Gehlot in 2020 had again vowed to waive the farm loans taken from nationalized and commercial banks. He had also blamed the commercial banks for not cooperating and had informed that loans availed from scheduled banks were not to be waived off.
