LOAN WAIVER TO START IN 2 DAYS Cabinet arranges Rs 10K crore to begin with; rest to be marked in coming budget

Finally, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government is going to implement the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule loan waiver scheme from February 22. For this, the state cabinet on Wednesday decided to spend Rs 10,000 crore from its contingency fund. The announcement came as the MVA wanted to avoid any criticism on the issue during the budget session starting February 24.

As per bankers' estimate, a minimum of Rs 45,000 crore is needed for implementation of this scheme. The state is expected to make provision for the additional funds in the regular budget scheduled to be tabled on March 6. Rs 10,000 crore will be spent till March 5. An ordinance to facilitate withdrawal of the amount will be promulgated soon, a statement from the Chief Minister's Office said. The government had announced loan waiver to farmers who had taken loan up to Rs 2 lakh during the winter session of the Assembly at Nagpur in December 2019. It had announced to implement the scheme by the last week of February 2020. The farmers who availed loans up to Rs 2 lakh during the period between April 1, 2015 to March 2019 and not paid back till September 30, 2019 are eligible for this scheme.

As per government count, over 36 lakh farmers have taken loan up to Rs 2 lakh. The list of beneficiary farmers will be published from February 21 and the actual loan waiver will start from the next day. The government was relying on the state's Good and Service Tax share of Rs15,558 crore that is pending with the central government. But since the Centre has not yet paid these dues, the state has to start spending from its own coffer first. BJP, the main opposition party, has been criticising the state government for not implementing the loan waiver scheme announced by the previous government led by it. The cabinet meeting was called to get a nod for the sanction of Rs 10,000 crore as an advance for this purpose. “The loan waiver scheme will need Rs 10,000 crore till March 5, and therefore, it was decided to sanction as an advance through the contingency fund. The cabinet decided to increase the limit of contingency fund from Rs 150 crore to Rs10,150 crore,” a press statement issued by state government said. The state is scheduled to present its budget for 2020-21 on March 6 and the provision for remaining funds is likely to be done in it.

Scheme to be implemented by Apr 15

Last week, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had instructed all collectors and divisional commissioners to pass on the benefits of the farm loan waiver scheme to farmers by April 15.

There are over one lakh elegible farmers in districts like Ahmednagar, Akola, Beed, Buldhana, Jalgaon, Jalna, Nanded, Nashik, Parbhani and Raigad. “The announcement of the eligible farmers will start from February 21. After this, the farmers can visit the government offices or centres designated from them. All government officials and employees should talk with farmers with respect,” CM Thackeray had instructed the administration.

The state will start 95,769 centres for Aadhaar verification. Out of this, 8,184 centres will be in banks, 22,770 will be at Aaple Sewa centres, 8,815 at common facility centres and 52,000 will be at ration shops.