ONGOLE: A small farmer died of heart attack owing to the alleged humiliation meted out to him by bank officials while trying to "recover" loan of Rs. 20,000 from him in violation of Reserve Bank of India guidelines in Ayyapurajupalem of Chimakurthi mandal in Prakasam district.

Ironically, Prakasam is one of the 16 districts in Andhra Pradesh covered by the Prime Minister's special package to waive interest on all outstanding agricultural loans as of June 30, 2006, to reschedule the loans and sanction fresh loans to check suicide cases among farmers.

Loan rescheduled

It was stated that Vemula Venkateswarlu (60) owned an ancestral property of half an acre besides an assigned land of one-and-a-half acres in Ayyapurajupalem.

He borrowed Rs. 10,000 from Andhra Bank, Uppalapadu branch, three years ago. As he could not repay the loan, the Government had rescheduled it last year and the bank sanctioned him a fresh loan of Rs. 10,000.

Pleads for time

In this background, the bank officials went to his house on Friday and allegedly demanded that he repay the loan.

Saying that all his five sons had gone to Hyderabad to work as masons, Venkateswarlu pleaded for time with the bank officials and promised to get some money from his sons to repay the loan.

But the bank officials allegedly forced him to come out of his house so they could lock it up.

`Heated arguments'

After "heated arguments", the bank officials left. Venkateswarlu's wife, who had gone to the field, rushed home on hearing about the visit of the bank officials.

She found Venkateswarlu brooding over the "humiliation" and tried to console him. He died two hours later.

But the bank officials said that Venkateswarlu did not have to pay anything to the bank now and reasoned that they had no need to demand repayment as the Reserve Bank of India had given clear instructions to implement special package of the Prime Minister.

`Maybe coincidental'

When contacted over telephone, Andhra Bank Deputy General Manager, V. Sudarsan said that the bank officials had gone to Venkateswarlu only to give him interest waiver and reschedule his loan but not for recovery.

"It may be coincidental that he died two hours later," the Deputy General Manager said.

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