Every year while presenting the budget, the Union finance minister announces a number of schemes meant to help the poor, unemployed and underprivileged. Whether those schemes really achieve their objective and benefit the target group depends on how they are implemented at the grassroots level.

Take the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana for example. Last year, I had written about an unemployed youth whose dreams of earning a livelihood by buying an autorickshaw was shattered because the bank that had sanctioned the loan to buy the vehicle under the Rozgar Yojana had eventually failed to release the amount. What was worse was that the bank — the Gobindpur (Orissa) branch of the State Bank of India — had refused to comply with the orders of the consumer court at the district level and later, the state level. By the time the apex consumer court took up the revision petition, nine years had already passed and though the court expressed its unhappiness over the way welfare schemes framed by the central government were frustrated by banks, it did not give any direction to the bank to release the loan on the ground that the scheme was already over.

Nor did it award any stiff punitive damages. It merely asked the bank to pay the consumer a compensation of Rs 10,000. In essence, it was a case of the consumer justice system failing the consumer.

Now more than a year later, in a similar case, the apex consumer court has given a more positive verdict. It has not only upheld the order of the lower consumer courts directing the bank to immediately release the loan amount of Rs 47,500 sanctioned towards opening a small grocery shop, but also asked the bank to pay Rs 10,000 for dragging the consumer to the apex consumer court without any justification. It has also asked the bank to recover this and the Rs 5,000 awarded as compensation by the state commission (a total of Rs 15,000) from the officials responsible for denying the loan granted under the Rozgar Yojana to the educated, physically challenged youth.

The apex consumer court’s order, holding the bank guilty of not just deficiency in service, but also “administrative misfeasance”, should force all banks to review their policies vis-à-vis government schemes meant to help the underprivileged. Where the implementing agencies falter, consumers can seek the intervention of the consumer courts to ensure justice (Canara Bank, Madhubani vs Shri Binay Kumar Jha, RP No. 3210 of 2005).