Maharashtra government will have to bear the burden of so many crores on farm loan waiver

The Uddhav Thackeray government of Maharashtra has announced a farmer loan waiver, but this will put an additional burden of Rs 45-51 thousand crores on the exchequer in the current financial year.

The coalition government of the state’s Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress have announced to waive up to two lakh loans of farmers. The condition is that the loan is taken before 30 September 2019, and the farmer is not a defaulter.

In the year 2017-18, 44 lakh farmers got the maximum benefit of loan waiver, while 89 lakh farmers have taken crop loans this year. There are 137 lakh farmers in the state. This year about 50 lakh farmers are expected to get the benefit of the loan waiver scheme. The reason for this is that the loan waiver amount has increased from 1.5 lakh to two lakh.

In a report by SBI Research on Monday, when the BJP-Shiv Sena government announced the debt waiver, then the number of beneficiaries was less, and the expenditure on this estimated at 45 thousand crores, but the number of farmers increases. Then the spending will also be 51 thousand crores. However, the expense can be limited to Rs 12,500 crore, if the former plan added to it or its coverage is limited.

SBI Research estimates that 90 lakh farmers of the state will be eligible for a loan waiver this year, compared to 89 lakh in 2017-18. This time 44-50 lakh farmers will be entitled to maximum benefits of the scheme, whereas in the year 2017-18, 36-42 lakh farmers got maximum benefits.

On average, the debt of Rs 1.02 lakh per farmer will be waived, compared to Rs 77,318 last time. Thus, this time the loan waiver amount can be Rs 45-51 thousand crores, which was Rs 34,020 crore previous time.