MUMBAI: Latest data from the state-level bankers committee (SLBC) for Maharashtra show that after the present ruling front announced farm loan waivers if they were voted back to power in the last November polls, there has seen a massive 16.3 percent on-year spike in bad loans from farmers accounts with the bad loan pile jumping to Rs 35,477 crore as of June 2025. This is little over 12.75 percent of the total outstanding agri loan of Rs 2.78 trillion.
Though have been in power for a year since the present ruling front promised farm loan waivers, they have been fifing one excuse or other to delay it. On Friday, the state finance minister Ajit Pawar, who is also the deputy chief minster, said the poll promise cannot be implemented before the likely upcoming civic body polls in the state, for which no data have been fixed yet.
This is jump in significant as between FY24 and FY25, total agricultural NPAs across all banks in the state inly inched up, from Rs 31,059 crore in end FY24 to Rs 31,253 crore in endfY25, while the same soared by 11.80% since the poll promise.
The situation of the farmers is so bad in the state or the trend of not paying the dues on time have increased so much that just in three months—between April and June 2025, the NPAs from them jumped by Rs 4,224 crore from Rs 31,253 crore in end-March 2025 to Rs 35,477 crore in June 2025. The numbers were Rs 30,494 crore or 16.3 percent more than the year ago period.
Stated differently, the number of stressed farm loan accounts rose from 15.5 lakh in June 2024 to 24.7 lakh in June 2025, a full 60 percent jump which only shows the increasing trend of not paying in anticipation of the waivers or their increasing financial stress, according to the SLBC, led by the public sector Bank of Maharashtra.
Of the total NPAs from public sector banks constituted the largest chunk of Rs 20,303 crore, or 57 percent of the total while those with cooperative banks jumped to Rs 8,214 crore as of March 2025 from Rs 7,739 crore in December 2024. Farm loan waiver have been a more effective vote catcher for all political parties across the country.
If accepted, this would be the second farm loan waiver by the state in under seven years. Not just Maharashtra, many other states like Andhra, Telengana, Karnataka, Odisha, UP, and MP among others have also been wooing farmers who constitute the largest chunk of voters ahead of polls with loan waivers.
The case of Maharashtra assumes significance as this is the state that has been witnessing the largest number of suicides by indebted farmers for the past five years. The regions most affected within Maharashtra are primarily the cotton and soybean belts of Vidarbha and Marathwada, which are often vulnerable to climate risks such as erratic monsoons and droughts.
According to the latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau (for 2023, 2024 is not compiled yet) as many as 2,96,438 farmers killed themselves between 1995 and 2014, in the nine years between 2014 and 2022, the number stood at 100,474. In 2022, a total of 11,290 persons involved in the farming sector (5,207 farmers and 6,083 farm labourers) have killed themselves, accounting for 6.6 percent of total suicide victims in the country.
According to the latest NCRB data for 2023, Maharashtra had the highest number of farmer suicides, followed by Karnataka, accounting for as much as 38 percent (4,151 deaths) and 22 percent (2,423 deaths) respectively. Other states with a high number of farm-related suicides were Andhra, MP, and Tamil Nadu. Together, these five states account for 80 percent of all farmer suicide in the country in 2023. According to the SLBC data, banks in the state have lent over Rs 2.78 trillion to over 133 lakh accounts as agriculture loans. Of these, loans worth Rs 35,477 crore have already been classified as NPAs as of the June quarter.
In percentage terms, this is more than 12.75 percent of the loans disbursed to the farm sector are NPAs. Compared to the previous quarter, NPAs went up by 0.78 percent, says the SLBC data.The highest share is of public sector banks, which have farm sector NPAs of over Rs 20,000 crore. This is followed by cooperative banks, which are sitting on NPAs to the tune of Rs 9,527 crore as of June 2025.
The rest is divided between regional rural banks, private sector, and small finance banks. Bankers said farmers did not repay last year's EMIs hoping that the dues might be waived. For instance, Yavatmal, the cotton growing district of the Vidarbha region, has over 87,000 NPA accounts worth Rs 2,422 crore now, while the sugar and cotton growing Solapur district tops in farm loan NPAs at Rs 3,976 crore, leaving behind Yavatmal—known of late as farmers' suicide capital.
Even the capital Mumbai district has farm loan NPAs worth over Rs 1,000 crore, while those from Mumbai suburban districts are Rs 153 crore. The districts which have NPAs of under Rs 200 crore are Bhandara, Mumbai suburban, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Palghar, Ratnagiri, Raigad, and Thane according to bankers.
