Maharashtra govt to publish list of farm loan waiver beneficiaries

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, December 16

Amid allegations of irregularities, the Maharashtra government has agreed to publish the entire list of people who opt to get their repayments of farm loans waived.

According to state government sources, the list will be published on a district-wide basis so that the names of the beneficiaries and the amount of loan waived from the financial institution are verifiable.

However, the entire list will be published after the waiver process is completed, sources said.

On Friday, Shiv Sena MLA from Kolhapur Prakash Abitkar claimed to have had his loan of Rs 25,000 from the district co-operative bank waived even though he had not applied for a waiver.

Abitkar also produced documents which showed that government officials and retired teachers who are ineligible for the waiver had availed of the benefit.

According to the state government, just 69 lakh farmers as against the 89 lakh initially estimated will likely benefit from the loan waiver.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had told the state assembly last week that several bogus names were detected during the process of verification. The state government estimates that the burden on the state exchequer due to the farm loan waiver programme would come down to Rs 20,734 crore from the Rs 34,022 originally expected.

Fadnavis said the benefits of the 2008-09 and 2012-13 farm loan waivers had been siphoned off by many bogus beneficiaries.

However, as Abitkar showed on the floor of the state assembly, the weeding-out process under the current dispensation hasn’t been fully effective.