Fakery plaguing scheme: Chandrakant Patil

Mumbai: Revenue minister Chandrakant Patil has said that the presence of 10 lakh bogus farmers and their verification is causing a delay in disbursement of loan waiver benefits. However, he added that the process has been expedited and will be completed by October-end.

Mr Patil is chairman of the group of ministers that was formed for implementation of loan waiver scheme. Earlier, the government had set the deadline of September-end for verification of forms and money was to be deposited into farmers’ bank accounts by October 1. But after Mr Patil’s statement, it is now clear that loan waiver scheme will be delayed further. The Maharashtra government has declared Rs 34,022 crore loan waiver for 89 lakh farmers in the state. Till now, 72 lakh farmers have applied for the loan waiver online.

The state government has announced that deadline for filing of the form is September 15. As per earlier timetable, verification of claims made by farmers was to be completed by September 30. The government had announced that it would start transferring loan amount into the farmers’ bank account from October 1.

However, Mr Patil had said in Kolhapur that implementation of farm loan waiver would take some time. “We have asked to expedite the process. But 10 lakh farmers are bogus. Therefore, verification of farmers will take time. We will see that no ineligible farmer would get the benefit and all money goes to the real needy farmers,” said Mr Patil. He also said that this process of verification would be completed by October end.

Farmers organisations and a core committee of farmers are demanding total loan waiver. But chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had rejected the demand, saying that “it would not be feasible and state treasury will bleed.”