RBI wants action against officials for lapses in debt waiver scheme
| Business Standard | - |
The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in a strongly worded communication to
banks, asked them to verify all the accounts granted benefits under farm
debt waiver scheme announced in 2008.
RBI said administrative and accounting lapses on the part of officials and auditors should be identified and fixed immediately and action should be initiated at the earliest without any exceptions.
In cases where in ineligible accounts were extended benefits, RBI said such cases should be dealt with top priority and recoveries should made immediately to ensure no loss to the exchequer.
Recovering such amounts in full would be the personal responsibility of institutional heads RBI said. This means chairman and managing directors of public sector banks and chief executives in private sector banks would be responsible for such recoveries.
All the cases of tampering of records should be identified and stringent action under relevant sections of law should initiated, RBI said adding chief vigilance officers should monitor this action regularly.
In the cases were debt waiver certificates weren’t issued to the eligible farmers they should be immediately issued and full records of such issuances should be kept ready for inspection indicating RBI would inspect them during the annual inspection of the banks.
List of eligible farmers who were not granted benefits under the scheme should be prepared and examined on why they were denied benefits. In such cases where action appears to be with malafide intentions or carelessness action should be initiated by the banks it said.
RBI said the action taken information on all the points on a monthly basis should be submitted to it before seventh of every month.
Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its report on farm debt waiver scheme tabled yesterday in parliament had came down heavily on the department of financial services (DFS) and RBI on the lapses in the scheme. RBI had told the CAG that it had a mere role of pass through agency and had no role in monitoring the scheme.
CAG had however rejected this argument. It said “audit doesn’t agree with RBI’s response as guidelines issued by DFS required RBI and NABARD to put in place a system for monitoring the progress and implementation of scheme on daily basis till July 2008 and on weekly basis thereafter”.
RBI said administrative and accounting lapses on the part of officials and auditors should be identified and fixed immediately and action should be initiated at the earliest without any exceptions.
In cases where in ineligible accounts were extended benefits, RBI said such cases should be dealt with top priority and recoveries should made immediately to ensure no loss to the exchequer.
Recovering such amounts in full would be the personal responsibility of institutional heads RBI said. This means chairman and managing directors of public sector banks and chief executives in private sector banks would be responsible for such recoveries.
All the cases of tampering of records should be identified and stringent action under relevant sections of law should initiated, RBI said adding chief vigilance officers should monitor this action regularly.
In the cases were debt waiver certificates weren’t issued to the eligible farmers they should be immediately issued and full records of such issuances should be kept ready for inspection indicating RBI would inspect them during the annual inspection of the banks.
List of eligible farmers who were not granted benefits under the scheme should be prepared and examined on why they were denied benefits. In such cases where action appears to be with malafide intentions or carelessness action should be initiated by the banks it said.
RBI said the action taken information on all the points on a monthly basis should be submitted to it before seventh of every month.
Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its report on farm debt waiver scheme tabled yesterday in parliament had came down heavily on the department of financial services (DFS) and RBI on the lapses in the scheme. RBI had told the CAG that it had a mere role of pass through agency and had no role in monitoring the scheme.
CAG had however rejected this argument. It said “audit doesn’t agree with RBI’s response as guidelines issued by DFS required RBI and NABARD to put in place a system for monitoring the progress and implementation of scheme on daily basis till July 2008 and on weekly basis thereafter”.
No comments:
Post a Comment