Maharashtra government bid to meet loan waiver deadline by Diwali

Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) led Maharashtra government is striving hard to keep the Diwali deadline for the farmer’s loan waiver scheme that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced in June.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (File | PTI)

MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) led Maharashtra government is striving hard to keep the Diwali deadline for the farmer’s loan waiver scheme that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced in June.

The scheme, worth Rs 34,022 crore, is expected to benefit around 60 lakh of around 1.5 crore farmers – with a loan account – in the state. The information and technology department, which is compiling the farmer’s data and scrutinising the eligibility, is expecting at least 8-10 lakh farmers to get relief in the first phase.

The data collected by the IT department revealed that the final figure of farmers who have applied for the loan waiver scheme across the state is 56.59 lakh. The rest, 2.41 lakh farmers, are yet to submit their Aadhaar card number with the application.

There are about 77.26 lakh bank account holders.The department has started the process, beginning with the removal of names of non-eligible farmers, who had applied for the loan waiver scheme.

A senior official said that they are also cross-checking with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) about taxpayer and service tax payee farmers.

“However the data will not be shared with any other agency to maintain privacy of the taxpayer,” clarified the official.

Apart from taxpayers, MLA, MP, members of Zillah Parishad (ZP), office bearers of cooperative societies and government servants as well have been excluded from the loan waiver scheme.

VK Gautam principal secretary of IT department said that the department is ready to launch the scheme before Diwali as the information from the remaining banks is expected to arrive within 24 hour.

“The data of eligible farmers will be out on Tuesday evening. So the loan waiver scheme can kick start before Diwali,” said Gautam.Each family would be eligible to get benefit of loan waiver up to Rs 1.5 lakh.

If a husband and wife have combined loan amount up to Rs 1.5 lakh, they will get the complete loan waived off. If the amount exceeds Rs 1.5 lakh, they will have to repay the extra sum, the state government said.