Uddhav Thackeray’s loan waiver scheme leaves several questions and doubts unanswered

Nagpur:

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s announcement of loan waiver for the farmers up to the limit of Rs 2 lakh pending loan dues on Saturday has left several questions unanswered, than solved any. The scheme is intended to benefit farmers who have loan dues of up to Rs 2 lakh from September 2017 to September 2019. There are several doubts and unanswered questions as to whether the District Central Co-operative (DCC) banks will get the direct benefit to write off their Non-Performing Assets (NPA) instead of the loan waiver actually benefitting the farmers.

In the run up to the 2019 Assembly elections Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had promised a complete loan waiver if his government (Sena) was voted to power. Uddhav had then promised that the 7/12 Land Extract (agricultural land record) of farmers will be cleared of all crop loan entries.

Soon after he took charge as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, the pressure of the loan waiver began to mount on him. That is why Uddhav hurriedly made the announcement on the last day of winter session which concluded on Saturday in Nagpur, the winter capital of Maharashtra.

It does appear that CM had announced the scheme without having made any proper preparations. Thackeray now says that the scheme will be applicable from March next year as he wants a period of three months to draft the rules and eligibility norms. 

By the time it does finally commence the Kharif crop season will be upon the farmers in April. For the farmers the dilemma will be whether to stand in queue for the loan waiver money at the bank or plough their farm land. By the time the farm loan waiver process is over, the monsoon season will be over and until their 7/12 land extracts are made clear of all dues, the banks will not extend them fresh credit.

The difference between the farm loan waiver scheme implemented by the previous Devendra Fadnavis led government and the one announced by the Thackeray government now, is that earlier the farmers had to fill up a eight page Online form, fill up their bank account details, loans availed from banks, Aadhaar number and several other columns that the farmers had to fill up. In several villages, there were issues of the Internet and hence the scheme came under criticism from opposition parties.

Loan waivers announced by the government has always been criticized and raised several questions. The loan waiver announced by the previous Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government had been criticized later by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena led government on grounds that there was no data available on how many farmers actually benefitted from the loan waiver scheme announced by the Congress-NCP government.

On the other hand the previous Fadnavis government argued that it tried to streamline the process, identified the beneficiaries through Online registration, created a data base for future use and weeded out the free loaders who made merry at the expense of the genuine farmers.

Thackeray and Finance minister Jayant Patil clarified that the farmers or his close relatives will not be required to stand in queue to register their names just to ensure he will get benefit of the loan waiver and will not need to fill-up the form online. He said that all the farmers will be required to show is his loan amount entries to the DCC banks, will need to fill up his Aadhar number and the bank will reset the farmer’s loan account to No Dues account.

Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council Praveen Darekar claimed the Thackeray governments Farm Loan scheme will be a huge blunder as only the DCC banks will benefit from it, and the needy farmers will be left high and dry. The DCC banks which are controlled by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress will be the biggest beneficiaries of the loan waiver.

Hence there are some questions which need clarifications from the Uddhav government.

Will the loan waiver amount be deposited directly in the DCC banks without anyone knowing the actual number of beneficiaries?

Will the taxpaying farmers also get the benefit of farm loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh?

Will it be restricted to purely crop loan or the loan taken for tractors will also be waived off?

What will be a mechanism to cross-check whether the needy farmers actually get the benefit?

Is there any possibility that DCC banks loan account will be cleared by showing fake accounts of the farmers?

Will the accounts be linked with the Aadhar card?