'Expert group to go into farmers' suicides issue'

New Delhi, Aug 22: Following the spate of farmers suicides, the Government has decided to constitute an expert group to go into the problems of agricultural indebtedness in its totality and suggest measures to provide relief to farmers across the country.

Stating that the Prime Minister has not appointed a Committee to probe the causes of growing farmers' suicides, Minister of State for Finance Pawan Kumar Bansal told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that the terms of reference of the expert group were to provide relief to farmers across the country in view of their growing indebtedness.

Replying to supplementaries, the Minister denied that the Karnataka government was considering proposals to waive agricultural loans to farmers who committed suicide due to crop failure.

Clarifying that no separate instructions had been issued to waive off bank loans due to victims of the 1984 riots in Udham Singh Nagar of Uttaranchal, he said a debt relief scheme for the November 1984 riot victims to write off the aggregate of eligible loans from all banks up to Rs 25,000 as principal together with outstanding interest was formulated and circulated to all scheduled commercial banks on June 16, 1993.

The scheme was revised in 1997 for write off of all eligible loans up to Rs 50,000 vide a circular dated Decembre 27, 1997, he added.

Mr Bansal told a questioner that police were investigating the two instances when borrowers had committed suicide due to alleged harassment and humiliation by recovery agents of a private sector bank that was an erstwhile development bank created by the Government.

"As per the Model Code for collection of dues and repossession of security, banks commit to maintain the dignity and respect to customers in their debt collection policy and not follow policies that are unduly uncoercive in collection of dues," he told the House.

The Fair Practice Code for credit cards operations similarly incorporated a clause that the bank's dues collection policy would be built on courtesy, fair treatment and persuasion, he said.

RBI had also issued guidelines on November 21, 2005 that the banks/NBFCs and their agents should not resort to intimidation or harassment of any kind, either verbal or physical, against any person in their debt collection efforts, including acts intended to humiliate publicly or intrude the privacy of the credit card holders' family members, referees and friends, making threatening and anonymous calls or making false and misleading representations.

Any violation by banks in this regard attracted penalties from the Reserve Bank of India, he added.

UNI