Maha legislature crippled over fracas on loan waiver demand

The functioning of Maharashtra legislature continued to remain affected amid uproar over the demand for loan waiver to farmers, with both the Houses being adjourned for the day today without transacting any business.
In the Assembly, the opposition Congress and the NCP members were joined by their counterparts from the BJP and Shiv Sena in raising slogans for waiving off the loans of farmers.
The fracas forced the Speaker Haribhau Bagde to adjourn the proceedings twice before the House was adjourned for the day without transacting any business, on the third consecutive day.
The Assembly passed the motion of thanks on Governor C Vidyasagar Rao's customary address to the legislature on the first day of Budget session on Monday, without any discussion due to the noisy scenes.

Due to the bedlam on the loan waiver issue, the two-day debate on the Governor's address, which was scheduled to begin yesterday and end today with the Chief Minister's reply, couldn't take off.
The functioning of the Upper House too remained crippled on the fourth consecutive day as the members of the Congress and the NCP raised slogans on the issue.

The Council has not been able to take up Question Hour due to strident demands for the loan waiver.
As the Council assembled today, senior NCP member Sunil Tatkare said the Opposition had moved an adjournment motion on the issue.

"The government has done nothing in the last two years on the demands being made by the Opposition. How could the government write off dues of money lenders when by law they (lenders) are not supposed to lend agricultural credit to farmers," he said.
The NCP leader said the government does not want to write off the loans being availed by farmers from the cooperative banks and credit societies.
As the Congress and NCP legislators started raising slogans, the Leader of the House and the Cooperation Minister Chandrakant Patil said, "the government wanted to improve the agricultural infrastructure in such a way that the farmers won't fall into the debt trap again after his earlier debt is settled."

Patil (BJP) said though a loan waiver was granted by previous Congress-NCP government in 2008-09, the condition of farmers did not improve thereafter.
"The BJP government wants to improve the agricultural infrastructure by providing better seeds, good water supply for irrigation, and fertilisers with a view to improve their crop yield," he said.
The minister said the government is installing solar-powered feeders in order to ensure uninterrupted power supply to agricultural pumps of farmers.
"The government has now also allowed farmers to sell their produce outside the agricultural produce markets," he said.
After the House reassembled, the Deputy Chairman Manikrao

Thakre called for laying of the official papers and reports.
The Leader of Opposition Dhananjay Munde said they would not participate in any business of the House until the government announced a complete loan waiver.
He said today's was the seventh session where the opposition has made the demand for loan waiver.
"The government does not want to announce the loan waiver because most of the district central cooperative banks are controlled by the Congress-NCP. In the last two years, more than 9,000 cooperative bank account-holding farmers have committed suicides because of indebtedness," the NCP leader said.
He asked whether the government was waiting for more than 25,000 farmers out of total 1.37 crore farmers who hold bank accounts in cooperative banks, to commit suicides.

As the opposition members continued with their slogan shouting, the Deputy Chairman adjourned the proceedings for the day.