With less than half farm loans waived, M’rashtra extends deadline

Shiv Kumar

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Tribune News Service

Mumbai, April 15

Nearly a year after the Maharashtra government announced the farm loan waiver scheme, less than half the total agricultural loans amounting to Rs 34,000 crores have been waived off. The state government on Saturday extended the last date for farmers to submit their applications to avail of the loan waiver till May 1.

According to data available from the Maharashtra government, only Rs 14,388 crores have been disbursed to 46.52 lakh farmers till March 31 this year. As per the state government’s assessment 89 lakh farmers are eligible to have their farm loans waived off.

The farmers desiring to avail of the scheme are required to apply online at district headquarters and panchayat offices where personnel have been hired to assist in the application process, according to
state government sources.

However, the process has been slow and there have been complaints from farmers’ groups about eligible applicants being left out due to the cumbersome application process.

Officials say, farmers applying for farm loan waiver under the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana (CSMSSY) won’t be directly given the funds. Instead the funds would be transferred to the financial institutions from where they had availed of the loans.

This would allow the farmers to borrow afresh from these banks without submitting additional collateral.

The slow progress of the farm loan waiver has, however, heightened agrarian distress in rural Maharashtra.

”I am committing suicide because of the loans and the Narendra Modi government is responsible for my suicide,” the suicide note by a farmer, Shankar Bhaurao Chawre, from Rajurwadi village in Ghatanji tehsil of Yavatmal district earlier this month said.

Chawre was suffering from a loan burden of nearly Rs 4 lakh. Moreover he had lost his cotton crop to a bollworm attack. However, his farm loan was yet to be waived off and the banks he had borrowed from continued to levy interest adding to his financial woes.