Only 1% of eligible Maharashtra farmers get loan waiver amount in one month

Even as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced on October 18 that 80% of eligible farmers would get the loan waiver amount in a month, the state has disbursed the loans to only 73,000 or less than 1% of the 77 lakh applicants.

The total amount credited into farmers’ bank accounts stand at Rs 481 crore.

To speed up the disbursal process, the state government has replaced a private firm with its own agency, Mahaonline, to weed out duplication in the list of beneficiaries.

After announcing the loan waiver of Rs 34,020 crore to benefit about 89 lakh farmers in various categories, the Fadnavis government began the process of crediting the amount into the bank accounts of farmers five weeks ago.

In a programme at the Sahyadri guest house on October 18, while handing over certificates to about 100 farmers, Fadnavis had said 80% of the eligible farmers will be declared debt free in a month. He also announced that the state had prepared a list of 8.40 lakh farmers with a debt of Rs 4,000 crore.

The state government has received 73 lakh applications for the loan waiver. It believes that of these 65 lakh farmer will qualify for the waiver.

The cooperation department has prepared the list of 1 lakh beneficiaries and expects it to be cleared until the second list is cleared in next few days.

“The department of information and technology (DIT) and Mahaonline are working on the list of applicants and verifying them. We expect the new list will be provided to us early next week. It will be followed by our releasing the money to banks,” said an official of the cooperation department.

The state government has also replaced the private firm for digitisation and verification. “Mahaonline Limited, a joint venture between government and Tata Consultancy Services, has been verifying the data for the last few days. After we found duplication in bank account and Aadhaar numbers, the first list of 2.39 lakh applicants was put on hold. The agency is reviewing the list and also preparing a new one ,” said the official.

Cooperation ministers Subhash Deshmukh said the preparation of the list of 70% beneficiaries will be completed by November 25 and the actual disbursement will begin by end of this month.

After days of protests by farmers in June, the government announced a loan waiver of Rs34,022 crore and later widened its scope, doing away with some criteria.