Only 13.47 lakh to get jewel loan waiver, says R Sakkarapani

When confusion prevails over the number of jewel loans to be waived in the state, Minister for Cooperation R Sakkarapani on Thursday has clarified that out of total 48.84 lakh jewel loans in the cooperative societies only 13.47 lakh loans are eligible for waiver.

Sakkarapani, in a statement, said that out of the total 48.84 lakh jewel loans 7.65 lakh are above the prescribed 40 grams limit. Out of the remaining 41.18 lakh jewel loans, 21.63 lakh jewel loans the loans were obtained by members whose family members have obtained loans in other cooperative societies taking the tally to over 40 grams.

So out of the remaining 19.55 lakh jewel loans 2.2 lakh loans were obtained fraudulently using AAY ration cards and out of the remaining 17.34 lakh jewel loans, 2.13 lakh jewel loans will not be eligible for waiver as the persons who have obtained jewel loans have already obtained farm loan waiver.

Out of the remaining 15.2 lakh jewel loans only 13.47 lakh jewel loans are eligible for waiver as close to 1.5 lakh jewel loans were obtained using fraudulent means such as pledging fake gold jewels and pledging no jewels.

The Minister also provided a relaxation that if proper details of ration and Aadhaar cards were provided they will be investigated and genuine beneficiaries will be added to the list of jewel loan waiver.

The Minister further said that in the previous AIADMK rule while giving jewel loans to farmers there were several irregularities and to make sure that the benefit reaches only to the genuine persons the state government has gone for thorough auditing of records after which the final numbers were arrived at and dismissed the allegations that there was politics in choosing the beneficiaries.