Defaulters trying to hoodwink banks to avail crop loans

Farmers at the Deccan Grameen Bank seeking crop loans in Bela mandal ofAdilabad district.

A section of ‘defaulting’ farmers in Adilabad is trying to hoodwink banks in order to avail crop loans as is evident from a gradually emerging trend. Surprisingly, it is lack of scruples which is making them adopt illegal means to take undue benefits and not desperation as is made out to be.

While banks are insisting on repayment of old dues before sanction of fresh crop loans, a majority of farmers are not inclined towards it hoping a waiver of crop loan will be announced by the government. One of the ways to wriggle out of the tricky situation, according to the unscrupulous farmers, is to create ‘new’ title documents for the same extent of land which is already under mortgage with the bank.

“Yes, the number of applications being received seeking duplicate or new documents for the supposedly lost ones has increased in the recent weeks. We could identify three of the 10 such applications received as bogus,” says Talamadugu Tahsildar M. Rajeshwar Reddy talking about the trend.

In some other cases legal heirs of dead land owners have sought new title documents and pattadar passbooks for the extent of their lands. It later came to light, that the applicant-descendants needed bogus documents on being constrained in drawing advances from banks as the land owner had already mortgaged the original documents.

“We are insisting production of no dues certificates from the banks concerned before a duplicate pattadar passbook or title document is issued. This method has helped us in weeding out the bogus applications,” Mr. Reddy adds.

Officials at the Adilabad Revenue Divisional Office have detected several cases wherein farmers have forged the pattadar passbooks and title documents. In some of these cases banks had referred the documents for an authenticity check to the RDO, it is learnt.

Meanwhile, lack of coordination between Agriculture authorities and banks has rendered both of them clueless about the ground reality. There is no consolidated data about the rate of recovery of old loans which makes the scenario rather hazy.