Uddhav announces farm loan waiver in Maharashtra; Fadnavis to launch statewide agitation

Immediate loan waiver was one of the key promises made in the common minimum programme of the Shiv Sena-led Maha-Aghadi alliance.

The Maharashtra CM, according to PTI, also said that the money would directly be deposited in the beneficiaries’ banks and the scheme would be effective from March 2020.

The latest announcement in the Maharashtra Assembly came weeks after Thackeray held a cabinet meeting on December 4 to review a blanket loan waiver for farmers in the state.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis along with other BJP MLAs staged a walked in protest, alleging that the government had not fulfilled its original promise of full loan waiver. He announced that the state BJP will hold an agitation over the loan waiver scheme and termed it was “cheating of farmers”.

“The loan waiver announced by us (BJP-led government in 2017) has already benefited farmers. We had waived loan up to Rs 1.50 lakh. Between 2017 and 2019, there will be very few farmers with outstanding loans,” Fadnavis said, adding the real needy farmers were the ones who lost their crops due to untimely rain in October.

On November 28, Thackeray had chaired the first cabinet meet directing officials to work out details of the number of additional beneficiaries that would be added on enhancing the ambit of the loan waiver scheme, and the resultant burden on the state exchequer. In order to make the farm sector completely debt-free, the state government will effectively have to waive outstanding loans to the tune of Rs 1,31,578 crore.

More than 12,000 farmers have committed suicide in the state between 2015 and 2018, which averages to eight farmer suicides every single day during the period.

(With PTI inputs)