14,125 ‘Mumbai farmers’ seek Maharashtra loan waiver

Mumbai: Out of the 47.75 lakh applicants who have registered for the Maharashtra government’s Rs 34,022 crore farm loan waiver, 14,125 — bizarrely — are from Mumbai, four are from Uttar Pradesh and a few are from Madhya Pradesh.

The government has been receiving online applications from farmers who want their debt to be written off, and it will check their eligibility for the same.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in July had tweeted that the farmers who had taken loans from various banks also included 813 farmers in Mumbai. This kicked off a controversy after which the CM had said that the government would look into the matter. However, as per government data, 917 farmers in the city and 13,204 farmers in its suburbs have registered themselves for the waiver till August 31, 2017.

“We have received 47,75,097 online registration from farmers. Some of them have also filled forms meant for the loan waiver. We will check if applicants meet the eligibility criteria before giving them any waiver,” said Vijay Kumar Gautam, principal secretary of the information technology department on Friday.

Apart from Mumbai, two farmers from Lucknow, and one each from Rae Bareli and Pratapgarh have also sent their applications.

As Madhya Pradesh shares a border with part of Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, a few farmers from the neighbouring states had also applied for the waiver.

Offering a possible explanation as to why it showed that farmers from other states had applied for the loan, Mr Gautam said it could be the case that, though the applicants have agriculture land here in Maharashtra, the residential address on their Aadhaar cards must be different. However, he said that the entire list should be verified.

Farmers can apply online for the waiver till September 15 after which a first list of eligible farmers would be declared on September 30. The first list will feature farmers who are clearly eligible for the waiver. A second list and third list will be released featuring farmers who have some eligibility and those who do not meet the criteria respectively.

The districts where most registrations were done for the loan waiver include Jalgaon (2.86 lakh), Ahmednagar (2.46 lakh), Aurangabad (1.80 lakh), Beed (1.59 lakh), Buldana (1.16 lakh), Chandrapur (1.09lakh) and Jalna (1 lakh).