Maharashtra government extends deadline for loan waiver application by 7 days
The state has received applications of about 51 lakh farmers against the estimated 89 lakh farmers to be benefited by the loan waiver announced in June.
After realising that many eligible farmers are yet to make online applications for the farm loan waiver, the Maharashtra government has extended the deadline by seven days. The applications will now be accepted till September 22. The state has received applications of about 51 lakh farmers, against the estimated 89 lakh farmers to be benefited by the loan waiver announced in June.
The state government has received 95.59 lakh online applications through its service centers in last seven weeks. Of the applications received, 40% are believed to be repeated, duplicate or ineligible, as the number drops down to 51 lakh when the families are counted. Since only one application per family is eligible for the waiver, the government has estimated the number of beneficiaries to be within 65lakh.
The deadline for the online applications was extended after complaints about the technical glitches and long queues at many centres.
“We received the demands from farmers for the extension of the deadline of online applications for the loan waiver, as many farmers were yet to fill the form. After discussion with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, we have decided to extend it by seven days. This would not affect the deadline of actual disbursement of the amount into the account of the beneficiaries as the verification of the applications will be done simultaneously,” said Subhash Deshmukh , cooperation minister.
The government has announced that the disbursement of the waiver will begin from the first week of October.
CM Devendra Fadnavis had announced a loan waiver of Rs34,022 crore on June 24 this year. Calling it a ‘historic waiver’, he claimed that 89 lakh farmers will benefit from it, while more than 40 lakh farmers will be brought back into the eligibility net for the loans.