The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Panel to check anomalies in PACS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Panel to check anomalies in PACS

Y. Mallikarjun

HYDERABAD: Several irregularities committed by many primary agricultural cooperative societies in the State, like excess payment of salaries to the staff, showing closure of loans and issuance of fresh ones through book adjustments, even while giving five per cent interest rebate on them, were detected by the Vigilance and Enforcement department.

Some societies had even misappropriated the recovered amounts.

With substantial losses and erosion of assets in most PACS, the department has recommended setting up an expert committee to check irregularities and plug loopholes, official sources told The Hindu.

Appropriate measures

It wanted the Government to take appropriate measures to evolve a more effective monitoring mechanism to ensure that the PACS functioned as per their objective and fix specific responsibility on officers at each level for better accountability.

Initiation of criminal action against those who had misappropriated the recovered loans and launching a special drive under one-time settlement for recovery of old dues were among the other suggestions.

According to section 116 (C ) of the AP Cooperative Societies Act, 1964, the salaries of the PACS staff should not exceed two per cent of the working capital, or 30 per cent of the gross profit, whichever is less.

For instance, in four societies of Nellore district, the excess salary drawn ranged from Rs.11 lakh to Rs.23 lakh between 2003 and 2005, the period for which the accounts were checked.

In another case in East Godavari, the secretary of a PACS had failed to remit about Rs.11 lakh of recovered loan.

In many cases, officials found that the property documents were returned to the loanees although the repayments were outstanding. There was no recovery for the preceding five years at the time of scrutiny in a PACS in Guntur.

The accumulation of overdue was Rs.1.27 crore in another society in Medak, where no fresh advances were made for four years prior to the verification.

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