Farm activist Kishor Tiwari today said that only 3,200 farmers have received the financial aid of Rs 10,000 announced by the Maharashtra government as immediate relief to cultivators facing an agrarian crisis.
Tiwari, the chairman of a special taskforce appointed by the state to address the prevailing agrarian crisis, said the figures revealed by the State Level Banking Committee (SLBC) show that only 3,200 farmers have received the Rs 10,000 aid.
"The state government's Rs 10,000 advance as immediate aid to farmers has come rather late and reached only a handful so far. According to official data, just about 3,200 farmers across the state received the advance. Majority of PSU banks had not started giving the amount yet," Tiwari said in a statement issued here.
Tiwari, whose NGO Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) has been highlighting agrarian distress in Vidarbha and also tracking farmer suicides in the region said that out of almost 90 lakh farmers who defaulted in repayment and are eligible for a loan waiver, only 3,200 farmers have got the advance by the end of this week.
He also urged the government to take action against the erring officials responsible to disburse the relief aid announced earlier as part of the mega farm loan waiver.
"PSU banks have disbursed barely 15 per cent of the crop loan targets set by RBI-Nabard for 2017-18 kharif season. Last year, by July 21, 80 per cent target was achieved," he said.
The crop loan outlay for the year 2017-18 is expected to be around Rs 58,662 crore, an increase of around Rs 7,000 crore from last year's outlay of Rs 51,235 crore, the statement added.
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