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{/googleAds} On Valentine's day in Shikohabad, Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal distributed certificates of "liberation" to the victims of bank loans at Shikohabad's Ram Lila ground.

What happened in a few hours was backed by weeks of toil and fool-proof preparations, says Firozabad Chief Development Officer (CDO) Heera Lal whose model of clean grassroots governance has now become a bench-mark and an example of how direct benefits could be transferred without the aid of middlemen.

But such success stories rarely make news these days, say his admirers.

Heera Lal said "India enjoyed good GDP growth rate, but the boom bypassed the vast rural hinterland of India. Farmer distress-suicides have made newspaper headlines. Various attempts to provide relief (MNREGA, PDS etc) have had little impact. So, many economists think the loan waiver is a worthwhile alternative to provide relief. The aim is worthy. But IRDP loans to the rural poor in the 1980s demonstrated that crooked officials demanded bribes amounting to may be one-third the intended benefits."

The UP government issued a government order to waive farmers’ loans on December 12, 2012, under a scheme called ‘Debt waiver scheme’ for farmers, who had mortgaged productive agricultural land to raise the farm loan of upto ₹50,000 and had paid 10 percent of the loan. Under this scheme the UP Sahkari Gram Vikas Bank waived off ₹1650 crores worth of loans to 7,10,000 farmers. All farmers were to be issued certificates as a proof, by the bank's headquarter in Lucknow.

Despite several benefits of this scheme, it’s tardy implementation proved a major hurdle, depriving the deserving farmers the advantage that the government intended to pass on. For more than one year, farmers were not given certificates and there were numerous complaints of corrupt practices and blackmailing by middlemen.

Since a majority of small farmers who had taken loans were not in a position to repay, they had to sell or mortgage their agricultural land, a frightening scenario that would have reduced them to the status of landless.

This small help to farmers could have minimised corruption but the problem was that without the middlemen and touts known by many names here as authorised dealers, agents, facilitators, deed writers or plain dalals, farmers were not able to approach the bankers directly.

Says Firozabad CDO Heera Lal, "in the name of managing, processing and sanctioning loan, they charge fees in the name of documentation and to oblige officials. This fee varies depending upon the loan amount between many thousands to five hundreds."

“It was at this point that I decided to intervene and experiment with a new procedure which helped save approximately ₹3 crores by organising a certificate distribution programme in one day and in a single shot to free the farmers from the clutches of corrupt elements."

"On my request, the assistant registrar (co-operative) contacted the head office of the bank in Lucknow. He was told that the printed certificates were ready for distribution. We collected the printed certificates within two days from General Manager Alok Dixit of the bank posted at HQ Lucknow and in charge of this scheme at state level. Bank officials informed that no certificate was given in any district. I decided to take lead in my District Firozabad (UP). We planned a distribution ceremony to give all 10026 certificates in one day at one place. With this aim to achieve we started elaborate and fool-proof preparations.

“The six branches distributed loans to 12026 farmers. Firozabad district has nine blocks. I appointed Block Development Officers (BDO’s) as nodal officers for this. District level officials from the agricultural department were attached with each block to assist BDO’s. All six branch managers were directed to prepare certificates and handover to BDO’s. At each block a team under BDOs was entrusted with the task of successful distribution. Distribution plan was architected. For each farmer two slips were prepared. One was sent to the farmer as invitation and the other was pasted on his chair at the distribution site in the allocated block space. A team of village secretary, secretary Sadhan Sahkari Samiti, Kisan Sahayak under village Pradhan was formed to follow and execute the direction of BDO. BDO acted as link between me and village team headed by Pradhan. The village team under pradhan was directed to work under full control of BDO’s and in coordination with branch managers. The teams were entrusted with responsibilities of invitation, bringing and sending back farmers safely and respectfully from their village to distribution site at the Ram Lila ground in Shikohabad. After lectures of guests and chief guests, certificates were distributed in one shot. A public representative MLA, MP and party officials along with Block Pramukh distributed simultaneously in each block as planned, while Chief guest distributed to 45 famers on stage. Farmers got proof in their hand about their loan waiver off in the form of this certificate.”

"This is now a model. The general manger Alok Dixit who came and represented the head office said so many other district officials are contacting him to know its details to organize similar programmes in their districts. Many district officials contacted me to know the whole process. Kannauj, Sambhal, Mainpuri, Allahabad and Badaun are in the process to replicate this model.

Heera Lal says his initiative is both a social and a political product that empowered the last man in the row. “Seeing a gathering of 12026 farmers from 506 villages along with their Pradhans gave me immense pleasure in serving such a big crowd of farmers.”