Law deparment opposes private loan waiver

Law and judiciary department has opposed the proposal to waive of farmers’ loans taken from private moneylenders outside their allotted territory. After the government’s decision taken in April last year to waive off loans given by licensed moneylenders, the government received more than one lakh applications of farmers. However, only Rs19 crore has been disbursed against waive off loans.

The state government has taken a decision to waive off loans of the farmers from suicide-prone Vidarbha and Marathwada region. The finance department has set aside ' 171.30 crore towards the scheme.

According to Chandrakant Patil, minister for cooperation, 1,663 private moneylenders applied to grab the benefit of the scheme. They had disbursed loans among 1,04,177 farmers.”

He further said that tehsil level committee approved waiving off loan amount worth '51.97 crore of 33,991 farmers. But the district

level committee finally approved waiver of loan worth '46.66 crore of 31,357 farmers. “Out of the 33,991 farmers, 16,249 farmers loan amount of '19.55 crore has been waived off till 11 January 2016,” said

Mr Patil.When asked why only a few farmers would get the benefit of the loan waiver, Mr Patil said, “Many moneylenders had disbursed private loan outside of their allotted territory. It is illegal and that’s why most of the farmers did not qualify for the scheme.”

He further added, “When the moneylenders are given licences, their area of operation is also decided and they cannot grant loans outside that area. However, most of the applications did not qualify as the farmers had taken loans from money lenders outside their designated areas.” “The government had

proposed to amend the law so that those farmers can also be given a loan waiver. However, the law and judiciary department said that such an amendment may not survive legal scrutiny,” said Mr Patil and added that they would try to find a solution for the problem.