Mumbai: The Opposition on Friday claimed that only 24,131 of the State’s 1.36 crore farmers have benefited from the State government scheme of giving ₹10,000 per farmer for sowing kharif crops in the past two months.
According to district-wise figures made available by the Opposition, only ₹24 crore have been disbursed under the scheme till date, which was announced before the farm loan waiver. Sources in the State government agreed that the kharif scheme has seen poor response. In the recently concluded monsoon session of the Legislative Assembly, State Co-operation Minister Subhash Deshmukh too had accepted that farmers are not responding to the scheme as expected.
Sachin Sawant, spokesperson, Maharashtra Congress, said, “The scheme was announced on June 11, as per which banks were to immediately give ₹10,000 to farmers. This was to help them to start the sowing process, since the loan waiver would not happen overnight. But two months have passed and banks were extended guarantees by the State government 40 days ago. The poor response is due to the government’s apathy to farmers.” He claimed that farmers are forced to sow again due to lack of rain. “No government machinery is in place to help farmers.”
Two days ago, the government had announced ago that over 10 lakh farmers have successfully applied for the farm loan waiver scheme. “This scheme has been infested with dubious claims from the start. The government set 2009 as the base year for waiving loans, but what are the criteria? There is absolutely no clarity from the government side,” Mr. Sawant said.
