Fadnavis govt announces loan waiver of ₹34,000 cr

The Maharashtra government on Saturday announced a farm loan waiver of ₹34,000 crore .

The decision was announced by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis after an unscheduled meeting of the state cabinet.

“We have decided to write off loans upto ₹1.5 lakh of individual farmers,” Fadnavis announced at a press conference in Mumbai. Loans of about 40 lakh farmers will be waived by this decision. Further, incentive will be given to farmers who have been paying regularly 0.25 percent of their loans will be paid off if they have repaid. “About 89 lakh farmers will be benefitted by the decision,” Fadnavis said.

Loans taken by farmers till June 2016 will be waived off by the government, with an upper limit of ₹1.5 lakh. The package will also have a special scheme for farmers who have been regularly paying their dues.

The decision was taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Maharashtra after widespread protests by

Another farmer from Bundelkhand’s Chattarpur district allegedly ended his life, taking the number of agriculture-related suicides in Madhya Pradesh to 22 since the June 6 violence in Mandsaur.

Twenty-eight-year-old Raghuvir Yadav from Chattarpur’s Pali village allegedly consumed sulphas tablets in his field on Thursday. His father , Deshpat Yadav said there was loan of over ₹10 lakh on Raghuvir, but authorities claim that he

farmers demanding loan waiver. Farmers in many parts of the state were on a warpath early this month, which disrupted supply of vegetables and other essentials to cities, including Mumbai.

They were demanding a loan waiver, which was backed by all political parties. The stir was committed suicide due to a dispute in the family . He was rushed to Chhatarpur district hospital , from where he was referred to the hospital in Gwalior but he died en route .

Raghuvir was a contract farmer and had been suffering losses in farming for many years due to which he kept on taking loans , said local sources .

Meanwhile, a 65-year-old farmer, facing financial difficulties, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in Rajasthan’s Jhalawar district on Friday evening.

called off after the government gave them a firm assurance on brining in a comprehensive scheme to help the debt-pressed cultivators

Earlier on Thursday, Fadnavis had met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar in Delhi.