Mumbai: Not a fortnight has passed since the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra announced a Rs 34,022 crore farm loan waiver, and there is already a chorus of demands to expand its coverage.
Farm activists, experts and political parties including ally Shiv Sena want eligibility criteria for the waiver relaxed to include farmers unlikely to benefit now. Activists and politicians including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, are also insisting on increasing the one-time grant of Rs25,000 per bank account-holding farmer who has fully repaid debt till 30 June 2017. Meanwhile, activists from poorer and drought-prone Vidarbha and Marathwada have criticized the demand for a blanket waiver from “vested interests, affluent farmers, and their political proxies from the more prosperous western Maharashtra region”.
On 24 June, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government unveiled a loan waiver that it claims will benefit 8.9 million farmers. The largest component of farmers—4 million—to benefit are those whose 7/12 extracts have records of farm loans under Rs1.5 lakh, the cap that the government has fixed for waiver. Mint has reported that an overwhelming majority of these farmers are from Vidarbha and Marathwada where average farm land holding is larger but the quantum of loan is less than in western and north Maharashtra regions. Read More.
Farm activists, experts and political parties including ally Shiv Sena want eligibility criteria for the waiver relaxed to include farmers unlikely to benefit now. Activists and politicians including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, are also insisting on increasing the one-time grant of Rs25,000 per bank account-holding farmer who has fully repaid debt till 30 June 2017. Meanwhile, activists from poorer and drought-prone Vidarbha and Marathwada have criticized the demand for a blanket waiver from “vested interests, affluent farmers, and their political proxies from the more prosperous western Maharashtra region”.
On 24 June, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government unveiled a loan waiver that it claims will benefit 8.9 million farmers. The largest component of farmers—4 million—to benefit are those whose 7/12 extracts have records of farm loans under Rs1.5 lakh, the cap that the government has fixed for waiver. Mint has reported that an overwhelming majority of these farmers are from Vidarbha and Marathwada where average farm land holding is larger but the quantum of loan is less than in western and north Maharashtra regions. Read More.