Officials under stress on loan waiver implementation, levels rise as one dead

Mumbai: Officials of the state cooperative department, who have been asked to implement the government’s farm loan waiver scheme, are falling victim to stress. Members of the Maharashtra Cooperative Gazetted Officers Union has called meeting on Friday morning in Pune to address this issue of rising stress levels.

The recent death of Ratilal Ahire, an assistant registrar, has shaken the entire department, while another assistant registrar, Vitthal Khandagale, was admitted to a hospital in Pune for a brain haemorrhage last Friday. A few other officials of the department were admitted to hospitals in the past month. The Asian Age has the internal note of the meeting, which cites the reason for these incidents as the pressure of implementing the loan waiver.

Ahire, who hails from Sinnar, Nashik, succumbed to a heart attack on September 13. He was the only breadwinner of his family. His son, Akash, blamed the loan waiver pressure for his father’s death. “He was under tremendous pressure. Overtime and other things had affected him. Now there is no one to look after our family,” the youth said.

Speaking about Khandagale’s condition, his son, Kash, said, “There is no clear reason for his illness. He is still in coma. He had a huge workload. But we will come to know what the problem was only once he comes out of the coma.”

The Maharashtra Cooperative Gazetted Officers Union will give a memorandum to senior officers as well as cooperative minister Subhash Deshmukh. Stating that there was indeed pressure on his department, Mr Deshmukh told The Asian Age, “I am not aware of the cases in details. I too read about them in the last two days. I will find out the reason.”