When it comes to cooperative no media house-big or small can steal a march on Indian Cooperative as is proved once again in a news item on the Vasundhara Raje government loan waive off scheme. When all top dailies said NCDC has given loan to the CM to waive off farmers’ loan in the state we took a different position and declared that NCDC cannot give loan for such purposes.
And now the truth comes out. With a great pain the leading financial broadsheet Economic Times has found that the loan of Rs 5000 offered to the Rajasthan CM was in fact working capital for the next harvesting season-a point we made emphatically in these columns a week ago.
In a story titled “Raje struggles to arrange Rs 6,500 crore” ET writes “The Rajasthan government has approached National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) and National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) for this.
ET goes on “We have not given a single paisa or sanctioned any loan to the Rajasthan government or any state agency for farm loan waiver. We cannot give such a loan,” said NCDC deputy managing director DN Thakur.
“We are in the process of fulfilling the conditions. There should be no confusion that the loan waiver cost would be borne by the state government and for fresh loans we would take a loan from NCDC to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore”, ET quotes Rajasthan principal secretary (cooperatives) Abhay Kumar.
Indian Cooperative did the same story at least a week ahead of ET and titled it “NCDC has not given loan for waiver-scheme: Source”. One can access the URL by clicking this (https://www.indiancooperative.com/ncdc/ncdc-has-not-given-loan-for-waiver-scheme-source/)
Indian Cooperative has written ““The news is erroneous as we have given loan to Rajasthan govt for supporting farmers’ input needs for the next season and not for waiving off old dues”, said a highly-placed source in NCDC-the prime lender of cooperatives in the country.
“Talking to Indian Cooperative, NCDC official said waiving off loan for once is not the solution as farmers would be needing money immediately to buy inputs for the next season. It is here that the role of NCDC has come into play, explaining the rationale behind NCDC’s support, he said.
He also traced the long history of NCDC and explained how stringent the Co-op organization had been in giving loans.” Our recovery rate of 99 per cent also explains that our loans produce results and returns and it is hardly ever wasted in waiving off past loans”, he stated.”