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Mumbai, June 14
Days after announcing a complete waiver of payment of loans taken by farmers, the Maharashtra Government has indicated that it was looking to put a ceiling on the debt that is due to be forgiven.
Officials of the revenue department indicated that they are looking to waive off loans amounting to a maximum of Rs 1 lakh per farmer so as to limit the losses that would be caused to the exchequer. “Rather than waive off all the loans taken by farmers, there is a proposal to waive just the crop loans taken by them,” a revenue department official said.
State government officials said that Uttar Pradesh government, which was the first to announce loan waiver for farmers, has fixed a ceiling of Rs 1 lakh beyond which no loans would be waived off.
Farmers’ bodies that had negotiatiated with the government on Sunday said there was no mention of a ceiling on loans that would be waived.
“The ceiling of Rs 1 lakh which his appearing in newspapers holds no meaning for farmers. There are farmers in Vidarbha with five acres of land who have taken lakhs of rupees in loans,” Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghtana MP Raju Shetti told reporters.
He added that the farmers would not accept any ceiling on loans to be waived, nor would they agree to restrict the waiver to those holding smaller plots of land.
Representatives of farmers are speaking of farmers with as much as 15 acres of land who have taken lakhs of rupees by way of crop loans but haven’t been able to pay back because of falling prices of their crop and lack of liquidity due to demonetisation last year.
With farmers’ wondering whether the government was back-tracking on its promises, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray warned that the party would take “a big step” if the loan waiver announced by the government was not implemented by July-end. “We are very clear in our demand. We want a complete write-off of loans taken by farmers. It is not karz maafi but karz mukti that we want for our farmers,” Thackeray said.
Farmers’ representatives had met with Thackeray at Matoshree on Tuesday evening to thank him for his support during the protests for waiver of farm loans.
