Rs 6,208 crore loan waiver to benefit 40 lakh Maharashtra farmers
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COMMENTS 
The state package offers a complete loan waiver for debts up to Rs 20,000, a waiver of Rs 20,000 for debts above that amount if the borrower repays the excess, and adjustments for those who have repaid their loans regularly in the past
The Maharashtra government has announced a Rs 6,208 crore farm loan waiver that is expected to provide relief to 40.14 lakh farmers in the state who were not covered by the central government’s Rs 71,000 crore farm loan waiver announced earlier this year.
The government’s debt waiver and one-time settlement package covered 37.5 lakh farmers in Maharashtra; agricultural debt of around Rs 7,800 crore has either been written off or rescheduled.
But the central government’s package benefited only around 40% of farmers in Vidarbha due to larger landholdings in the region, and the state government was under tremendous pressure to announce a separate farm loan waiver to supplement the central package.
The Maharashtra government’s package will benefit farmers who own more than 5 acres of land and have paid back their loans regularly. Unlike the Union government’s farm package that was linked to landholdings, the state’s package offers relief to all farmers, irrespective of the amount of land they own.
The announcement was made during the winter session of the Maharashtra Assembly, in Nagpur.
Elaborating on the scheme, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said that loans of up to Rs 20,000 of all farmers who have more than 5 acres of land would be waived completely. Farmers with loans of over Rs 20,000 will have to pay only for the amount above Rs 20,000, while farmers who have repaid their loans regularly in the past and who took a loan for the kharif season earlier this year would be eligible for the same benefits.
Farmers who have defaulted on their loan repayments before April 1, 1997, and who were not covered by the central government’s package will also stand to benefit under the state government’s package.
This takes the number of farmers who have benefited either from the state or central government package to 78 lakh and the total loan amount waived to around Rs 14,000 crore.
How the state government will mobilise the resources for the farm loan waiver, however, remains unclear. The state’s finances are already under strain due to a decision to accept the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations.
As many as 4,238 farmers in Maharashtra committed suicide in 2007, accounting for a fourth of all farmer suicides in the country, according to the latest figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The suicides in Maharashtra continued despite one-and-a-half years of farm relief packages. Between 2005 and 2007, the state saw a plethora of official reports, studies and commissions of inquiry aimed at tackling the problem.
Besides Maharashtra, southern Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, central Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh account for nearly two-thirds of the country’s farm suicides.
Although the national total of 16,332 farm suicides represented a slight fall from 17,060 in 2006, the broad trend remains unchanged, says the report, adding that the total number of farmer suicides in the country since 1997 has been 182,936.
Source: Business Standard, December 31, 2008
The Economic Times, December 31, 2008
PTI, December 30, 2008
http://www.earthtimes.org, December 2008