Mumbai: In the wake of criticism from the Opposition for waiving to farmers’ loans, chief minister Devendra Fadanvis on Thursday announced in the Assembly that farmers whose loans were restructured in 2016 would also be eligible for the waiver (up to Rs 1.5 lakh). Earlier, the benefit for the waiver was not given to these farmers because they were not counted as defaulters of 2016 due to restructuring, and loan waiver was given to defaulters from 2009 to June 30, 2016. The CM said that an application would be launched in couple of days for farmers to fill loan waiver forms on their cell phones.
“The farmers whose loan was restructured got fresh loans. But now they are reeling under two debts. The farmers whose loans were restructured have become defaulters. Therefore we have decided to bring relief to the farmers whose loan were restructured in 2016 and bring them under the loan waiver scheme,” Mr Fadanvis said while replying to a discussion on loan waiver in the Assembly.
The CM added, “The form is not difficult to fill. We have set up 26,000 centres to fill up forms for farmers. An app will be launched so that the farmers can fill the form on cellphones. There are 1.36 crore account-holder farmers of which 49 per cent have less than one hectare of land. “We have taken the decision without seeing the land holding of farmers. There are 44 lakh defaulters and loan waiver up to Rs 1.4 lakh will help 82 per cent of farmers. Their land records would be cleared,” he said.
The government is going to extend the waiver to army men after Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar pointed that they were excluded from the scheme. Army men are grade -3 employees, who are not eligible for the waiver.
Taking a dig at the loan waiver given by the UPA government in 2008, Mr Fadnavis said that loans of shops, vehicle and land were waived off then. “Even Mumbai got a Rs 208 crore loan waiver and Vidarbha got Rs 286 crore. Many got a very small waiver while a few got even Rs 60 lakh waived off,” he said. The CM also slammed the Sangharsh Yatra, which was carried out by Congress-NCP leaders. “I know how much of a response it got. I have the report. We were criticised for spending money on advertisements, but the UPA spent Rs 1.60 crore for waiver of Rs 4,000 crore. But we spent only Rs 36 lakh for the waiver of Rs 34,000 crore” he said.
