“It is easy for the rich to get loans from banks, but the poor are forced to take loans from moneylenders at five times the market rates. Many poor farmers commit suicide as they are unable to repay these expensive loans. A breakthrough is needed to overcome this vicious cycle of poverty and debt and this breakthrough has been achieved today with the launch of Jan-Dhan Yojana, ”Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in New Delhi on 28 August last year while launching the ambitious programme for financial inclusion called the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY).
More than four months later, the programme seems to have made little difference to the lives of the poor in the regions where it is needed the most — for instance, in drought-hit Marathwada in Maharashtra, where more than 500 farmers committed suicide in 2014. According to local activists, 135 of the suicides occurred in the last two months of the year.
On 28 November 2014, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that eight crore accounts had been opened under the scheme and the number would touch 10 crore by 26 January 2015. INNLIVE visited some villages in Parbhani district of Marathwada to get a sense of how the programme is being implemented. This is the district that witnessed the highest number of farmers’ suicides (22) in the region in November and December.
Godaji Punjare, 40, killed himself in October 2014 by consuming pesticide at his four-acre farm in Jalalpur village. The PMJDY was to help keep such desperate people from taking the extreme step. Punjare’s widow Rajawati says only a few of her fellow villagers are aware of the financial-inclusion programme and even fewer have been able to open zero-balance accounts — the provision that has been touted as a magic mantra to provide millions of India’s poor access to the formal banking system.
Rajawati, 35, says that her husband killed himself as he had taken a loan of Rs 90,000 from moneylenders and was unable to repay it after his cotton crop failed due to the drought last year. Rajawati’s brother-in-law, Godaji’s younger brother Radhaji, told INNLIVE that the tehsildar and some agriculture department officials visited the family after the suicide and promised to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation. “But we haven’t got anything so far,” he says.
Asked about the PMJDY, Radhaji, 36, says he read about it in the newspapers but is yet to open an account under the scheme. INNLIVE met a labourer working in a field and asked him about the PMJDY. He said he had never heard of it. Other villagers recalled that some bank officials had once visited the village and told a few people about the scheme.
Near a Hanuman temple a few lanes away from Godaji’s house, INNLIVE came across some villagers sitting on a concrete platform. They alleged that bank officials ask for money before opening accounts. “A poster was put up at the panchayat building last August announcing the scheme, but only 20 percent of the 1,200 residents of this village have got their accounts opened so far,” says Suresh Punjare, a young man in his 30s. “Bank officials asked some villagers for money before opening the accounts.”
For instance, the State Bank of Hyderabad’s local branch officials allegedly asked Santosh Koke to pay Rs 500 for opening his account. “I went to the branch twice but could not get an account opened,” says Santosh, who is in his mid-20s. “If you don’t cough up the money they demand, they make some excuse to turn you back. They say they have run out of forms or they are busy and ask you to try again the next week.”
Near a handpump in the nearby Nandapur village, which is facing acute shortage of water, INNLIVE met some women and children who were waiting for their turn to fill their pots. “We are in deep trouble. Our crops have failed. We had to sell our cattle because we can’t afford the fodder to feed them. The cattle are ending up in slaughterhouses but there’s nothing we can do,” laments the sarpanch, Vishambar Rasal. “Those who committed suicide escaped this terrible fate, but the rest of us have to suffer in this living hell. We have to struggle every day just to survive. And it will get worse in the summer. The number of suicides will go up.”
According to the 29-year-old Rasal, bank officials have no interest in schemes such as the PMJDY as it offers them little monetary benefit. “Two months ago, an official from some bank came to our village, took documents from a few villagers and told us that they will be provided with passbooks soon. But nothing has been given to them yet. Most villagers are not aware of this scheme,” he says.
Another villager, Gajanan Rasal, 32, says that in this village of 3,000 people, only around 100 might have got accounts opened under the scheme. “The bank officials complete the formalities only when someone puts pressure on them,” he says.
The apathy is not limited to the PMJDY scheme alone. Villagers point out that despite having paid their installments for the crop insurance schemes of cooperative banks, the banks are refusing to give them the promised insurance money after the crops failed. “We paid the premiums for the kharif season and then the crops failed. Instead of giving us the insured amount, the banks are asking us to start paying the premium for the rabi season,” says Dhondaji Chandane, 30. “When we are not getting even insurance money, how can you expect us to open zero-balance accounts under the Jan-Dhan Yojana? The banks lend lakhs of rupees to the rich for building houses and buying cars, but refuse to give us even Rs 20,000 to invest in agriculture.”
The agricultural distress has forced a growing number of youth from these villages to migrate to cities such as Nashik, Pune and Mumbai in search of jobs to help their families survive. “Soon, a day will come when no one will be willing to do farming,” says an elderly villager in Nandapur. “We can’t even get our daughters married off because we have no money.”
The story is no different in Mandava village. Balasaheb Armal, 45, failed to get an account opened in the State Bank of Hyderabad. “When I went to the branch the first time, the officials asked me to come back after a week. But when I went there again, they asked me to come again after two or three months as they were busy distributing crop loans,” he says.
According to a 27-year-old local farmers’ rights activist, Keshav Armal, in this village of 2,000 people, not a single account has been opened so far under the PMJDY. “Almost every day, you hear of a farmer committing suicide. The government had done nothing to change the situation except introducing new schemes without thinking about how to ensure proper implementation.”
In the nearby Dharampuri village, the residents say a 55-year-old man, Dadarao Kadam, succumbed to a heart attack a few weeks ago after recovery agents put pressure on him to repay some loans. “Dadarao had taken loans amounting to Rs 2 lakh from the State Bank of Hyderabad and a cooperative bank. After his cotton crop failed, he couldn’t repay the loans and people from the banks started visiting his house often to put pressure on him. It seems he couldn’t handle the stress,” says a villager.
Asked about the Jan-Dhan Yojana, a villager, Indrajeet Kadam, told INNLIVE that some bank officials had visited Dharampuri once and distributed a few forms. “But not many of us are aware of the scheme,” he says.
Kishore Chaukhey, manager of the local branch of Allahabad Bank, claims that the bank has carried out surveys, distributed forms and opened 2,057 accounts for the residents of six villages. “Some work is still pending as we don’t have adequate staff,” he says.
To get a first-hand experience of what villagers face when they approach the banks for opening accounts, INNLIVE accompanied a villager from Jalalpur to the local branch of the State Bank of Hyderabad. A bank official told the villager that they don’t keep forms for the Jan-Dhan Yojana. On being questioned by INNLIVE, the official, who didn’t reveal his name, said they have run out of the forms, “but you can buy them from the shop outside”.
“The Jan-Dhan Yojana has not reached the villagers in Marathwada,” says Raju Shetty, MP and president of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana, whose party is an ally of the ruling BJP at the Centre as well as in Maharashtra. “The situation is the same across the region, be it in Parbhani or in Beed, Jalna and Nanded districts. Most villagers do not have accounts under the scheme and those who do are yet to receive any of the benefits. According to the scheme, an account holder gets accident insurance of Rs 1 lakh, life insurance of Rs 30,000 and an overdraft facility of
Rs 5,000. But the villagers in Marathwada are yet to get these benefits. Farmers do have accounts in the nationalised banks for availing crop loans, but they have not been provided any benefits promised under the PMJDY. If a farmer could have got an overdraft facility for Rs 5,000, he wouldn’t have committed suicide.”
According to Wardha-based farmers’ leader Vijay Jawandhia, the PMJDY is not the first financial-inclusion scheme that has been introduced in the country. “Manmohan Singh had launched the ‘no-frills’ account scheme, but it did not succeed as the banks were not keen to pursue it. Now, Modi has urged banks to take the new scheme seriously. RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, too, has asked the banks to focus on universality so that everyone can be included in the system.”
Jawandhia says that the implementation of the PMJDY has been tardy not just in Marathwada but also in Vidarbha. “Farmers who avail of crop loans have bank accounts as do the labourers who work for the MGNREGA projects. Members of the women’s self-help groups also have accounts. But why are they being denied the benefits promised under the Jan-Dhan Yojana? The new scheme is only meant to be a promotional campaign for the Modi government,” he adds.
Asked about the implementation of the programme in Marathwada, Principal Secretary (Finance) K Shivaji, who is also the PMJDY’s state mission director, refused to comment. “You should contact the convener of the State-Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC),” he told INNLIVE. SLBC convener LM Deshmukh, however, refused to believe that most villagers were unaware of the Jan-Dhan Yojana. “Maybe one or two families are yet to hear of the scheme,” he says. “We are trying to ensure that every family gets one bank account opened under the Jan-Dhan Yojana.”
Another issue on the minds of farmers in the region is that of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for agricultural produce. The farmers recall that during his election campaign last year in Yavatmal district of Vidarbha, Modi had promised to set the MSP at a level that would ensure 50 percent profit to the farmers. But the promise is yet to be fulfilled.
The farmers say that the current situation is worse than anything they have faced earlier. Some go to the extent of claiming that it is worse than the 1972 drought, which had led to the exodus of more than 1 lakh people from the villages in the region. “In 1972, at least we had access to drinking water. This time, we neither have water to drink nor food to eat,” says a farmer. More than 80,000 people from the 800-odd villages in Parbhani district, for instance, have been forced to migrate to the cities in search of livelihood.
“Marathwada has received low rainfall for three consecutive years. All our crops, be it cotton or soybean, failed because of the drought. The cost of cultivation is more than the MSP and, what’s worse, the market prices have fallen below the MSP,” says another farmer. ?To recover the input costs for the cotton crop, the yield has to be at least five quintals (500 kg) per acre. When there is normal rainfall, the cotton yield goes up to 10 quintals per acre. “But this time, the yield is only 50-60 kg per acre, so there is no way we can recover even the input costs,” says a farmer.
When the UPA government at the Centre was voted out, the MSP for cotton stood at Rs 4,000 per quintal. The Modi government raised it by just Rs 50. “On an average, the cultivation cost of cotton goes up to Rs 5,000 per quintal. If we add 50 percent of the cost, as per the promises of Modi, the MSP should ideally be Rs 7,500, but the new MSP is only Rs 4,050. What’s worse is that the market price is below the MSP and stands between Rs 3,700 and Rs 4,000 per quintal,” says Jawandhia. “In a normal year, this is the season when the crops are harvested and the farmers earn money. If they are committing suicide now, just imagine what will happen in summer.”
After the hue and cry over farmers’ suicides in the state, a Centre-appointed team led by Pravesh Sharma, additional secretary in the Union agriculture ministry, spent two days visiting 14 districts in Marathwada and Vidarbha to survey the conditions of the drought-hit farmers. Local activists allege that the team seemed to be in a hurry and carried out the survey haphazardly. “They visited most of the villages after it was dark and were in my village, Arvi Takali Kumbhakarna, for barely 10 minutes,” says Manik Kadam, 35, a farmers’ rights activist in Parbhani.
Following the team’s visit, 5,700 villages were added to the list of those declared drought-affected, which already included 19,059 villages. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a package of Rs 41,500 crore, of which Rs 7,000 crore was for providing immediate relief to the drought-hit farmers in Marathwada and Vidarbha and the rest for long-term measures.
However, even as the drought continues to ruin agriculture in Maharashtra, the Jan-Dhan Yojana has not made lives any better for the most desperate farmers trapped in the vicious cycle of debt.
No comments:
Post a Comment