Not linking the land holding to the loan waiver means maximum number of farmers would benefit from it, the minister said.
Farmers in Maharashtra, who had been on a war path from June 1 to press for their various demands, yesterday called off their stir after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced loan waiver for them.
The government also announced setting up of a high-level committee for the implementation of the scheme. The panel will decide on the criteria of debt relief.
"We have found that the loan waiver scheme introduced previously had benefited the rich farmers largely in Maharashtra. To avoid it, we will set up a high-level committee to omit such rich farmers from the list of beneficiaries. The mechanism for the same will be worked out with the help of the committee," he said.
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"The criteria of eligible farmers are being finalised. When loan waiver scheme was announced in 2008, in one case a loan amount as high as Rs 82 lakh was waived in western Maharashtra. A brother of a minister, who was in the state cabinet then, also benefitted from the loan waiver scheme. We would like to avoid mistakes of the previous government and issue loan waiver to those who are solely dependent on agriculture," the minister added.
He said they demanded that the needy farmers should get the benefits first and the government had agreed to this demand. Hence the committee is going to be set up to exclude the rich farmers from the ambit of the scheme, Patil said.
"The chief minister on June 2 had stated that farmers having land up to five acres would be covered under the loan waiver. The decision was not appreciated by the farmers' leaders from Marathwada and Vidarbha, where land holding per person is more. Hence, on Sunday, the higher power committee of ministers decided to cover all the eligible farmers under the loan waiver scheme," he said.
"It is the victory of farmers' rights that they would get loan waiver at the right time. The state government is also keen on increasing the purchase price of milk by co-operative societies from farmers. It will benefit the milk producing farmers and their income would go up," Patil said.
On Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statement that the states have to generate their own resources for the loan waiver, Patil said the state was capable of providing monetary assistance to farmers.
He also pointed out the success of LPG subsidy given-up by the people after an appeal made by prime minister Narendra Modi.
"Many people had laughed at Modi's appeal to give up the subsidy. But around two crore people have given it up so far and it helped the Centre to pass on the benefits to others who are in dire need of cooking gas. We are hopeful of some farmers from Maharashtra may reject the loan waiver in the same way," the revenue minister said.
Meanwhile, Raju Shetti, Lok Sabha member and leader of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghtana which is an ally of the BJP, said the steering committee had demanded implementation of the loan waiver scheme before the commencement of the Monsoon Session of the state legislature.
Shetti had earlier said if the government failed to fulfil its commitments, his organisation would resume the agitation from July 25.