Bangladesh Bank has asked Bangladesh Krishi Bank and Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank to be credible in rejecting farm loan application forms. The central bank has issued show-cause notices to the banks to explain why they did not preserve the rejected application forms.
The BB on Monday issued the show-cause notices to managing directors and chief executive officers of the two banks asking them to reply the central bank letters by February 19.
According to the central bank regulation, every bank has to preserve all rejected farm loan application forms in which they (banks) have to mention the cause of rejection in line with the BB directives, a BB official told New Age on Tuesday.
But, the BKB and RAKUB did not preserve the rejected forms which raised suspicion that they resorted to corruption in the approval process of the farm loans, he said.
The BB has recently conducted inspections of 43 branches of BKB in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Mymensingh regions and 33 branches of RAKUB in Rajshahi, Bogra and Rangpur regions while the inspections teams unearthed a number of anomalies in the approval and disbursement process of the farm loans.
The officials of the two banks usually give approval for disbursement of the farm loans by taking bribe, the official said.
The officials of the banks do not want to preserve the application forms to hide their corruption, he said.
Besides, the officials of the two banks usually do not provide the farmers with farm loan application forms if they (farmers) cannot manage any political recommendation, he said.
In some cases, they (BKB and RAKUB officials) provide the farmers with the application forms with taking money although the banks are supposed to offer the forms without receiving any kind of charge or fee, he said.
The BB in its letters asked the two banks to upload the application forms on their respective web sites and publish media advertisements in this regard so that the farmers could be able to get the forms with free of cost.
The BB will take punitive measures against the two banks if they fail to explain properly about the central bank’s show-cause notice, the BB officials said.
-With New Age input
