BHOPAL: At a time when suicides by farmers in Madhya Pradesh following scanty rain and poor yield have brought back focus on their plight, allegedly more than 1.77 lakh ghost farmers benefitted from interest subsidies on their loans.
Putting a question mark on the much hyped 0% interest farm loan scheme of the state government, a series of RTI queries by TOI revealed that between 2007-08 and 2012-13, interest subsidies meant for marginal farmers were embezzled by co-operative banks in the name of 1,77,956 'ghost' farmers.
This happened while close to 10,000 farmers committed suicides for various reasons in Madhya Pradesh in the last 8 years in the state according to the data by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).