Devendra Fadnavis declares loan waiver for 15.5 lakh farmers

Mumbai: After overcoming a series of obstacles, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis finally declared a loan waiver and incentive for 15.5 lakh farmers late night Friday. The government disbursed Rs 6,000 crore to banks immediately. Now, a list of 18.1 lakh farmers is ready and the government plans to send out lists to banks periodically as soon as banks send corrected data in the next two to three weeks. A senior bureaucrat told The Asian Age that the chief minister had set a November 25 deadline to complete most of the work, and theyachieved it.

The bureaucrat went on to explain that the chief minister had declared the first list of 8.4 lakh farmers in Diwali. However, due to problems with the bank data, it was withheld and a corrected list of 2.4 lakh farmers was released after a few days. The government disbursed Rs 800 crore but there were complaints that money had not been deposited in farmers’ bank accounts. The opposition, Shiv Sena and farmers’ organisations kept attacking the government for the past few months. The opposition and Sena personally targeted the CM, IT secretary Vijay Kumar Gautam, and OSD to CM Kaustubh Davse over the loan waiver issue and levelled serious allegations. Due to problems with bank data, the information and technology department too faced a lot of flak.

Notwithstanding, the IT and cooperation departments put in sustained effort to correct data and make necessary changes, and ultimately, all this paid off with the government able to declare a major list of eligible farmers.

“Despite everything, we have done our job and met the deadline. Now, we will finish our work in the next two to three weeks,” the senior official told this newspaper.