Congress terms govt's waiver as misleading'

Mumbai: Terming Maharashtra government’s claim about loan waiver as ‘misleading’, Congress on Tuesday said that in reality, only 4.5 lakh farmers would benefit from the scheme and only Rs 5,000 crore would be spent against the Rs 34,000 crore announced.

Congress even alleged that only 1,082 farmers have received the advance of Rs 10,000 that was supposed to be given to all the farmers, as the loan waiver amount will take some time to be distributed.

“Despite the state government’s promise about the advance Rs 10,000 to be given to all farmers, only 1,082 farmers have received it in Nagpur, Akola, Washim and Ahmednagar districts. It’s been 22 days since the announcement but the government has still not taken any step to ensure that its promise is kept. We want an explanation from the government,” Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said.

On the loan waiver announcement, Sawant said that the CM had earlier claimed that 89 lakh farmers would benefit and is now saying that 36 lakh would benefit from the scheme.

“The loan waiver announcement is completely misleading and the figures too are false. Actually, less than 15 lakh farmers would benefit from the loan waiver and only 4.5 lakh farmers’ land documents would be cleared, according to the criteria announced by the government. This will cost not more than Rs 5,000 crore to the government against their claim of Rs 34,000 crore,” Mr Sawant said.

The Congress spokesperson further mentioned that the government had said that it would take into consideration the loans taken by the farmers between 2012 and 2016. However, the figures of 89 lakh farmers and Rs 34,000 crore are based on the arrears of farmers from 2008.

“We have sought information from State Level Bankers Committee, which said that till March 31, 2016, the state had 1.36 crore account holder farmers of which 89.75 lakh farmers are within the credit limit. The Rs 34,000 crore dues are of the 40 lakh farmers that were pending till March 9, 2017. This indicates that the government is lying about
the figures,” Sawant said.