Mumbai: The Congress on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government had betrayed people over the farm loan waiver by changing rules about medium term loan and removing fishermen from the list of beneficiaries.
“By changing rules about medium term loan the government has betrayed people. The Congress had already sounded an alert about the decision. This will affect a large section of the fishermen community,” said Congress chief spokesperson Sachin Sawant.
The Maharashtra government has decided to give a loan waiver of '34,022 crore to 89 lakh farmers in the state. However, the details and eligibility criteria of the scheme have created confusion as well as a political war of words between the government and opposition parties.
In his fresh attack on the government, Mr Sawant said, “The state government has declared to waive off medium term loans of farmers. According to the rules of Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) and NABARD, medium term loan means three- to seven-year loans given by all agriculture-related loans given by nationalised and cooperative banks. The State Leading Bank Committee (SLBC) had already submitted the list of these medium term loans. All loans of fishermen come under this category. But now, by removing fishermen from the beneficiaries list, the state government has gone back on its word of loan waiver.”
Mr Sawant also claimed that the government’s decision to include restructured loans into the loan waiver scheme is the result of Congress’ continuous follow up of the issue. “Farmers have got their loans restructured only till 2016. But the government is trying to fool people by saying the deadline has been extended till 2017. In reality no farmer has got any of his loan restructured till 2017,” he said.
