The Maharashtra Congress on Saturday claimed that less than 15 lakh farmers will get the benefit of the farm loan waiver scheme announced by the State Government.
Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said the State Government figures on the number of farmers who will be benefitted by the farm loan waiver are misleading.
“With this farm loan waiver scheme, the State Government is trying to mislead the farmers by claiming that 89 lakh farmers will get benefit from the farm loan waiver of Rs 34,000 crore.
“However, in reality, less than 15 lakh farmers are going to be benefitted from it,” claimed Sawant at a press conference here. “There will be a loan waiver worth Rs 5,000 crore and not of Rs 34,000 crore as has been claimed by the State Government,” said Sawant.
As per the State Government’s resolution, farm loans taken between April 1, 2012 and June 30, 2016 will be waived.
“So the farmers who had taken farm loan between 2008 (after UPA Government’s loan waiver) and 2012 will not get the benefit,” he said.
Alleging that the Government is inflating the statistics as far as the number of farmers is concerned, Sawant said the Government had sought a report from state level bankers committee (SlBC) and as per their report, till March 31 2016, there are 1.36 crore farmers who are account holders and out of that 89.75 lakh have loan liability on them.