Chennai, Dec 30 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Minister for Cooperatives, I. Periyasami said 10.18 lakh people have benefitted from the jewel loan waiver scheme of the government as per the poll promise of the DMK.

Speaking to reporters at Dindigul on Thursday, the Minister said that the number of people who have taken loans against less than five sovereigns of gold through the cooperative societies was 48 lakh.

The Minister said that of this only 22 lakh people have pledged gold as per the norms and added that there were major misappropriations with many people pledging more than 5 sovereigns of gold.

Periyasami also said that a person had even taken Rs 5.85 crore by pledging more than hundreds of sovereigns by dividing them into five sovereigns each in various banks.

Minister said that stern action would be taken against employees of cooperative societies in such cases.

He also said that in districts like Dharmapuri and Salem even pawnbrokers had taken loans and AIADMK leaders like O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K. Palaniswami were seeking loan waivers for such people.