Bowing to pressure

The Maharashtra govt announced a loan waiver last June. Farmers say it hasn’t helped ease their struggle so far

~34,000 cr

farm loan waiver was announced by the state government after protests by farmers in June 2017

~1.5

per family cap lakh has been put on the loan waiver. This includes principal and interest amount, crop loans as well as mid-term loans from 2009 to June 2016

The scheme

had three components – besides the ~1.5 lakh waiver, it offered a one-time settlement option for those whose loans were more than ~1.5 lakh and a cash incentive of ~25,000 for those who repaid loans on time

The loan

waiver was disbursed through an online system after seeking applications by farmers, and syncing their data with that of the banks, using Aadhar unique identity numbers as a primary parameter

The system

was hit by technical glitches and after it came to light that a majority of nationalised and cooperative banks had not seeded the data with Aadhaar accounts

So far, the government has disbursed ~13,580 crore to 3.532 million farmers’ accounts; 7.7 million farmers applied for the loan waiver and around 4.652 million were found eligible for the various components. Out of these, 3.038 million have applied for a full waiver and remaining for the incentive cash amount. Another ~10,000 crore has been budgeted for the waiver.