Hyderabad: Tahsildars are all set to don the role of “loan recovery agents” for public sector banks.
The TS government has set up loan recovery committees at mandal levels headed by Mandal Revenue Officers to recover loan arrears from beneficiaries of bank-linked welfare schemes offered by the government.
Majority of the beneficiaries who had availed loans for self-employment schemes have turned defaulters. Banks, which have failed to recover loans from them for years together, have sought the government’s help.
“We have been asked to prepare the defaulters’ list bank-wise and initiate steps to recover loans. We will issue notices to defaulters. If they don’t respond, we will invoke the RR Act, seize their properties and recover loans,” said Krishna Reddy, president of the TS Tehsildars’ Association.
The government offers bank-linked welfare schemes for SCs, STs, BCs and Minorities up to Rs 1 lakh through respective finance corporations.
The committees, headed by the collectors of respective districts, coordinate with banks to select beneficiaries and offer loans at subsided rates wherein some component of the loan repayment are borne by the respective finance corporations while the rest were to be repaid by beneficiaries.
More than half of the beneficiaries out of 10,000 in the state have turned defaulters in the last seven years.
The banks failed to recover the arrears even after repeated attempts. With this, the banks had almost stopped issuing fresh loans.
Under pressure from the government, banks have agreed to extend the loans on the condition that the revenue department helps them in recovering the bad loans using the Revenue Recovery Act.
