Zero interest loans for Maharashtra farmers

In his maiden budget as Finance Minister, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar today proposed a scheme to make available crop loans to farmers at reduced rate of interest.

Farmers who repay their crop loan within the stipulated period will get loan up to Rs 50,000 at zero rate of interest and will get loan above Rs 50,000 and upto Rs 3 lakh at 2% rate of interest, Pawar informed the Assembly.

For payment of interest subsidy under this scheme a provision of Rs 84.28 crore is proposed for the year 2011-12. To make available fertilisers on time to the farmers, the state government is implementing since last three years scheme of maintaining buffer stock of fertilisers.

This scheme will be continued for next kharif season also. An amount of Rs 51.50 crore has been provided for this scheme.

There are about 31 lakh agricultural pumps in the state and to increase the agricultural income of farmers, subsidy is provided in electricity supplied to the agricultural pumps. A subsidy Rs 2,500 crore is proposed for the year 2011-12 for the scheme, he said.

During the year 2010-11, Mahavitaran would be providing electricity connections to 2,75,000 agricultural pumps. Efforts are being made to reach the stage of 'Electricity Connection on Demand' from April, 2011. To speed up programme of electrification of agricultural pumps and to remove the backlog of electrification of Agricultural pumps, a provision of Rs 80 crore is proposed for the year 2011-12, he said.