Loan waiver: State ends services of Innowave

Mumbai: The state government has discontinued the services of the Innowave company which was handling the online process of implementation of the farm loan waiver scheme. The government has decided to handover the work to Mahaonline, a government subsidiary. The state had allegedly paid Rs 35 crore to Innowave and Reign company as fees.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has refused to comment over the issue. The co-operation department had that it has not sanctioned the payment to the company and the IT department might have issued the payment.

However, the IT department sources said that the payment might not related to the loan waiver only as the company was also given the work of Direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme.

The chief minister had decided to use online process for loan waiver scheme, and the work was assigned to the Innowave company. However, several technical problems were witnessed, and the government had to face criticism for the delay.

Facing flak from the opposition, CM Fadnavis had removed IT secretary V.K. Gautam and asked Mahaonline company to take over remaining scrutiny process, said sources.

The allegations were levelled by the opposition that work was allocated to the company without tendering process.

However, the government had clarified that the company was awarded DBT work by tendering process and loan waiver process was the extended work for which there won’t be any extra payment.

Meanwhile, Congress Mumbai chief Sanjay Nirupam alleged that there was a misappropriation of funds and asked: “why the government had not given work to Mahaonline earlier?”  

“After all mess by a private company, now the government has given remaining work to Mahaonline and making payment to the private company is wrong”, saidCongress Mumbai chief Sanjay Nirupam.