Maha govt to form panel of legislators for loan waiver implementation

The Maharashtra government will set up a joint committee of legislators from both the Houses of the state legislature to oversee the implementation of the Rs 34,022 crore loan waiver scheme announced for farmers, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said today.
He also said that the first instalment of the loan waiver scheme will be rolled out in September this year.
He was replying to a marathon debate on the government's mega loan waiver package in the Council.
"The committee will oversee the implementation of the loan waiver scheme, point out shortcomings if any and make positive suggestions to improve its implementation," he said.

"The first instalment of the loan waiver will be rolled out in September this year," Fadnavis said.
Accepting the suggestion of NCP leader Sunil Tatkare, Fadnavis announced in the Upper House that the loan waiver package will also be applicable to farmers, whose loans have been restructured.

He also accepted Tatkare's suggestion to bring the families of Army jawans engaged in farming under the loan waiver scheme.
Referring to the loan waiver schemes of 2008 and 2009 announced by the previous Congress-NCP led government, the CM said that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its report on the loan waiver scheme had observed in its report that 14 per cent of the farmers, who were eligible for the loan waiver did not get the waiver, whereas 9 per cent of the farmers, who were not eligible got the benefit.

"The CAG in its sample survey of 2,000 farmers found that many people availed loan waiver to the tune of Rs 82 lakh and got their loan for shop, cars, business waived. Some even availed loan on land, which was already surrendered to the government," he said.
According to him, during the previous loan waiver scheme, many ghost accounts were created. In the 2009 loan waiver package of 286 crore, Rs 43 crore were allocated for the suicide-prone districts of Vidharbha, whereas Rs 287.19 crore were allocated for 1.43 lakh farmers in Mumbai.
Reading out the list of beneficiaries of the loan waiver package in 2009 in Mumbai, Fadnavis said that many farmers had availed the loan waiver for "land development".

He said that the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) this time around yet again submitted a fresh list of 600 farmers in Mumbai.
Justifying the government's move for online filing of forms to avail the loan waiver, he said that the aim is to weed out the ghost accounts.
Fadnavis said that the bank accounts of the farmers will be Aadhar seeded with biometric registration.
"Besides this, the loan waiver amount under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) will be directly deposited in the farmer's bank account," he said.
Over the delay in the implementation of the loan waiver scheme, he said that over the last 50 years 90 lakh bank accounts have been created and it is bound to take time.

Arguing that the government did not want to repeat the mistakes committed by the previous Congress-NCP government.
He said his government has tried to learn from the past mistakes.
"There was no list of beneficiaries available of the loan waiver package of 2008-09. The absence of the list, the banks had a field day then, which led to the 'ghost account jhol (scam)'," he said.