Maha waives loans of 41 lakh farmers

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, December 7

The Maharashtra Government claims to have waived the loans of 41 lakh farmers and disbursed nearly Rs 20,000 crore over the past few days after doing away with the need to link farmers’ Aadhaar cards to their bank accounts.

Data released by the government today suggests farm loans to the tune of Rs 14,864 crore had been waived and another Rs 4,673 crore were forfeited under a one-time settlement scheme for farmers.

The waiver comes days after the government lifted the requirement to link of Aadhaar cards to bank accounts. Several banks, both public and co-operative sector, had linked multiple farm loan accounts, in some cases more than a hundred, to a single Aadhaar card number since the number had not been collected from farmers at the time of disbursal of loans.

In many cases, bank employees had entered random numbers in the column meant for Aadhaar numbers.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier said the linkage of Aadhaar cards with bank accounts was essential for disbursal of farm loans in order to remove the names of bogus beneficiaries.

Under the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana, farmers will have loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh waived. The beneficiaries are being given a certificate to the effect by the lending banks. This will enable the farmers to apply for fresh loans, an official from the state co-operative department said.