Maharashtra may increase farmer loan waiver to Rs 37,000 crore

The Maharashtra government is likely to increase its loan waiver to Rs 37,000 crore, even after the Devendra Fadnavis-led government had already approved Rs 34,022 core as a loan waiver package. The state government on Thursday announced that the increase was due to inclusion of more farmers who had small land holdings and were already repaying their loans.

Speaking to the media, Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “We had kept an additional Rs 3,000 crore keeping the additional farmers in mind.”

Earlier, Mungantiwar sought Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s intervention to direct the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow nationalised banks to lend the state government Rs34,000 crore with a staggered repayment schedule over four years so that it can repay farmers’ loans. He also requested Jaitley to increase the cap on the state’s open market borrowing by Rs15,000 crore, over and above the existing limit of Rs35,000 crore, putting the state government in a position to raise funds for the waiver.

Earlier, the state government had announced that farmers would receive either Rs. 25,000 or 25% of the loan repaid (whichever is less) but since it has brought down to Rs. 15,000, more farmers with small landholdings would be covered in the loan waiver package and it would result in putting more burden on the state government.