In the Slip Zone

Chief Minister Fadnavis is in danger of losing his grip on the government

Devendra Fadnavis is in a bind. In the final year of his term, the chief minister is in serious danger of tripping up over the poor implementation of key government decisions and delivery of schemes. Evidently, complacency is plaguing the BJP government in Maharashtra.

It’s already caused the CM considerable embarrassment with regard to his flagship jalyukta shivar abhiyan (JSA). The scheme supports local micro-irrigation projects and has helped increase farm productivity, even in deficient monsoon years. But even though the statistics point to success, the state hasn’t claimed credit fearing trouble, after a petition in the Bombay High Court claimed the JSA was “unscientific and damaging to the ecology”. A court-appointed panel, headed by exchief secretary Johny Joseph, has also picked holes in the scheme.

Fadnavis’s ‘historic’ Rs 32,500 crore farm loan waiver has also come a cropper. To date, just 3.7 million of the 8.9 million farmers in the state have benefitted. Implementation has been mired in bureaucratic red tape including online processing of applications and mandatory Aadhaar linking of farmers’ bank accounts. Further adding to the ire of cultivators, banks have been delaying/ denying fresh crop loans to those whose loan waivers haven’t been processed.

And while he copes with all this, Sanjay Nirupam, the opposition Congress party chief in Mumbai, has accused the CM of nepotism of the worst