Barely 48 hours after the release of the second list of 21.82 lakh farmers covered under the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule crop loan waiver, the state government has completed authentication of 7.50 lakh loan accounts. Of these, the government has transferred Rs 2,000 crore in 4.02 lakh loan accounts by Monday evening.
Another Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 crore will be transferred in the remaining 3.50 lakh loan accounts by Tuesday evening.
Department of Cooperation and Marketing officer told FPJ, “Due to proper coordination between the government and banks including commercial and district central cooperative banks (DCCBs), money transfer is taking place quite smoothly. National Payment Corporation of India is transferring the money directly into the commercial banks which deposit in the loan accounts of farmers. In case of DCCBs, the money is transferred into the pool account and then deposited in the loan accounts of the farmers.” The officer said there was no problem at the ground level as all technical snags were removed.
The department of cooperation and marketing secretary Abha Shukla today briefed the pace of implementation of crop loan waiver to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray at the Vidhan Bhavan. The government has already transferred Rs 130 crore into 15,358 loan accounts in the first phase.
The government expects to transfer the money into the 34.98 loan accounts, which were uploaded on the government portal by April 15. The scheme to write off outstanding crop loan of up to Rs 2 lakh with a cut off date of September 30, 2019, was announced by Thackeray on December 21 last year. The debt-free farmers will be eligible for a fresh loan in the coming kharif season.
The government has earmarked Rs 15,000 crore in the supplementary demands and another Rs 10,000 crore in the Contingency Fund for the crop loan waiver.