Maharashtra Govt Forms High-Level Committee To Address Farmers’ Loan Waiver Demand

Mumbai: As demands for a complete loan waiver are coming in from various quarters, including an ongoing agitation by farmers at Nagpur, the Mahayuti government seems to have decided to address the issue by appointing a high-level committee under Praveen Singh Pardeshi, chief executive officer of MITRA and chief financial advisor to the chief minister.

The nine-member committee comprises departmental secretaries of revenue, finance, agriculture, cooperation and agriculture marketing, chairman of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank, a representative nominated by the chairman of the Bank of Maharashtra, which is the lead bank for crop loans, and director of information and technology (IT). The cooperation commissioner will be the member secretary of the committee.

The committee will not focus solely on the agriculture loan waiver issue. Instead, it has been tasked with addressing the larger problem of farmers’ debt traps and suggesting measures to help free the farming community from them. It will also recommend short-term and long-term strategies to improve farmers’ living standards.

The committee has been given six months to submit its report to the state government, and it can take on board experts from the field and officials from other departments to seek their views, says a government resolution (GR) issued on Thursday.

Despite implementing three major loan waivers during the tenure of Devendra Fadnavis-led government between 2014 to 2019, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government that assumed power in 2019, the issue of loan waiver to farmers has always been a political challenge. The Mahayuti government, led by Eknath Shinde, had, while facing the state assembly elections last year, assured a loan waiver if voted to power once again.

As the Mahayuti voted back to power with a landslide victory, demands are being made for fulfilling the election promise. Apparently, facing the precarious finances, the government is yet to do so. The ongoing agitation led by former MLA Bacchu Kadu and supported by ex-MP Raju Shetti and other prominent leaders seems to have forced the government to announce the committee to go into the issue.

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