Maharashtra govt set to extend cut-off for farm loan waiver till 2017

MUMBAI: With an eye on the upcoming elections and under pressure from Shiv Sena, the state government is working on a proposal to extend the cutoff for loan waiver benefit to farmers by one more year.
Under the current scheme, crop loans from April 1, 2009, to March 31, 2016, are waived. “We are now working to extend the cut-off by one year. By doing so, we are hoping to add 12-15 lakh farmers on the beneficiary list.It will add an additional burden of Rs 4,000 crore,” said an official from the co-operation department.
Senior cabinet ministers Girish Mahajan and Jaykumar Rawal, who successfully mediated with angry farmers and cut short their long march to Mumbai, had told the protestors that the government was considering waiving loans till June 2017.
The waiver has been approved for 50.9 lakh farmers, which will cost Rs 23,817 crore. Out of this, Rs 18,000 crore has been disbursed to 43.2 lakh accounts.
The Sena alliance with the BJP came with several conditions; one of them was inclusion of more farmers in the loan waiver scheme. Uddhav Thackeray has publicly said when he toured the state, a lot of farmers had told him that the loan waiver scheme had not reached them.
In 2017, the state government had rolled out the scheme which would benefit 89 lakh farmers and would require Rs 34,000 crore, according to their estimates. Outstanding crop loan of Rs 1.5 lakh per household would be waived completely, and for loans above that, a one-time part settlement scheme was announced. Of the total number of applications for the scheme, 9-10 lakh belong to the one-time settlement scheme category. “There is little progress in this scheme as farmers have to pay their side of the amount before the government can transfer the Rs 1.5 lakh,” said another official.
The original scheme has been modified several times in the past to include demands of various parties and farmer groups.