Government to manually verify applications

Mumbai: Following setbacks in online scrutiny of the farm loan waiver scheme, the state has decided to conduct a part of the verification process offline or manually, said senior officials.

While chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had decided to process the farm loan waiver scheme using special software, there was tremendous chaos which occurred during the digital process.

Not only was implementation of the scheme delayed, the mess invited criticism from all quarters. Despite the problems, over one crore farmers accessed the online system and 77.28 lakh applications were filed. After removing duplicate and erroneous applications, the IT department processed 69 lakh applications digitally.

After verifying many more particulars, over 48 lakh farmers were extended the benefit of the loan waiver scheme recently. The CM had declared in the assembly that the new list of farmers eligible for the loan waiver would be declared soon, however it is still to be announced owing to several problems, said senior officials.

As the remaining verification work has been assigned to the government's own Maha online company and there are still issues with the data supplied by banks, the cooperative and IT departments have now decided to process the remaining applications manually, senior officials told The Asian Age.

When contacted for his version, CM Fadnavis did not respond.