CM to include farmers from '09 onwards

Increasing the scope of the loan waiver package, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday decided to include all eligible distressed farmers right from the year 2009 in the package.

Chief Minister Fadnavis had an interaction with farmers in the state during his 'Mi Mukhyamantri Boltoy' programme produced by DGIPR. Earlier, a delegation of BJP MLAs Anil Bonde, Ashish Deshmukh, Sanjay Kute and Prashant Bamb met Chief Minister Fadnavis and requested a change in loan waiver norms. They pointed out that the announced loan waiver was for farmers between 2012 and 2016, but there were a few farmers facing crises even after the first loan waiver was announced in 2008.

Chief Minister Fadnavis announced this decision during the programme and has also relaxed the deadline till July 31 for farmers who are regularly repaying the loans so that more farmers can avail the benefits by repaying the dues. This deadline was fixed at June 30 earlier. In the same way, Fadnavis has announced that the deadline for a one-time settlement would also be relaxed, for which farmers would have to repay the loan in one settlement so that the government could put up to Rs 1.5 lakhs in farmers' accounts.