Nagpur: Within six months of presenting its biggest supplementary demand ever, the State government will be asking the Central government for ₹26,402.32 crore, of which ₹15,000 crore will be for the farm loan waiver scheme.
In the monsoon session held in July, the BJP-led State government had presented a demand for an additional grant of ₹33,533 crore to meet expenses, of which ₹20,000 crore was for extending loan waivers to farmers.
The latest supplementary demand, presented on the opening day of the Legislative Assembly’s winter session on Monday, covers the ₹34,000 crore that the scheme is expected to cost the State government.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the House that the State government is ready to discuss the loan waiver scheme with Opposition leaders. The Congress and NCP have been targeting the ruling coalition for not implementing the scheme, despite setting several deadlines. “The Opposition must remember that till now, we have paid more money than what you paid in the 2008 loan waiver scheme,” he said.
Of the ₹15,000 crore earmarked for the loan waiver scheme in the latest supplementary demand, ₹1,000 crore each will be used to waive loans of tribal and Scheduled Caste (SC) farmers, and will be taken from funds allocated to the Tribal Area and SC/ST sub-plans respectively.
The decision to use money allocated to the SC/ST sub-plan is unlikely to go down well with the Opposition and activists, as the government has already taken ₹1,500 crore (₹500 crore from SC sub-plan and ₹1,000 crore from ST sub-plan) for the supplementary demand presented during the monsoon session. The State Cooperation Department, which is implementing the loan waiver scheme, gets ₹13,000 crore.
What the rest get
The government will be spending ₹10.18 crore on cashless medical insurance for sitting and former MLAs and MLCs, and their eligible family members. The Energy Department gets ₹3,127.68 crore, and nearly 90% of this will cover subsidies given to agricultural pump holders and power loom owners, among others. The Water Resources Department has been allocated an additional ₹1,318.34 crore.
The Rural Development and Irrigation departments will get ₹1,217.44 crore, while the Tribal Development and Public Health departments have been allocated ₹1,129.54 crore and ₹850.08 crore respectively
