M'rashtra CM under pressure to follow UP on loan waiver

Some 31 years ago on March 19, 1986, farmer Sahebrao Karpe and his entire family comprising wife and four minor children, ended their lives at Cheelgavhan village in Yavatmal district in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Located in central India, the Vidarbha region - that borders Madhya Pradesh to the north, Chhattisgarh to the east, Telangana to the south and Marathwada and Khandesh regions of Maharashtra to the west — has in the last two decades become the suicide capital of the country.

The issue of farmers’ suicide, or for that matter the agrarian crisis, is not limited to the Vidarbha region – it is now common in many other regions of the country such as Bundelkhand. In Maharashtra, suicide by farmers are not limited to Vidarbha – they have ended lives in North Maharashtra, Western Maharashtra and Marathwada regions. In fact, the problem is acute in Vidarbha and Marathwada which have faced back-to-back spells of drought.

“Since the suicide of Karpe and his family, farmers’ suicides have not stopped. In 31 years, Maharashtra has recorded over 60,000 farmers’ suicides, including of women and youth,” Kisanputra Andolan leader Amar Habib said, adding that the problem is serious and complex.

When the erstwhile Congress-NCP Democratic Front government was in power, one of the major issues for the opposition parties was farmers’ suicide and agrarian crisis. Now the farmers have renewed the demand for loan waiver. What is more important here is that the Congress and NCP which parted ways before the 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls have now closed ranks and are carrying out “sangharsh yatras” across the state. The Shiv Sena, the oldest ally of the BJP and part of the government, has been raising the demand.

Another ally, the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana has been vocal in its demand too. The Congress-NCP has got support from the Samajwadi Party (SP), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), Republican Party (Kawade) and Janata Dal (United). Farmers across the state are undertaking protests in support of their demand. One such protest was held outside Mantralaya, the state secretariat in Mumbai. A farmer even attempted suicide in the secretariat.

“We want to provide relief to farmers,” Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said but announcing a loan waiver is not in his hands. The government has consulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Agriculture Minister Radhe Mohan Singh, but there has been no immediate solution in sight.

Things got complicated in the state when newly-elected Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced a Rs 30,729 crore scheme to waive crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh of small and marginal farmers in the state.

Even though it was restricted to crop loans, the demand has now intensified - and it is coupled with insensitive statements from senior BJP leaders like the state party president Raosaheb Patil-Danve. In fact, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray himself and the party through editorials in Saamana, the Marathi mouthpiece and Dophar ka Saamana, its Hindi tabloid version, has been regularly lashing out at the government. Fadnavis has said, out of the 1.36 crore, 31.57 lakh farmers have loan overdue to the tune of Rs 30,500 crore.

“These farmers are not eligible for fresh loan. There is a need to bring them back in the institutional credit system. But we have to give incentive to over one crore farmers who pay their loan on time,” he said. In fact, when Maharashtra Finance and Planning Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar was tabling the budget, legislators of Congress and NCP undertook a protest on the farmers’ issue following which 19 of them were suspended. It was, however, revoked before the day’s sitting ended.

“The state government wants to help farmers and reduce their loans,” Mungantiwar says, pointing out that the chief minister has already held meetings with the Centre and the latter would take a call taking the national scenario into consideration. Fadnavis, on his part, has also announced a team to study the loan waiver model of Uttar Pradesh.


Major issue

Meanwhile, the government came under fire when two key ministers — Agriculture Minister Pandurang Pundkar and Food and Public Distribution Minister Girish Bapat — went on an official foreign trip as part of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan even wrote to Modi saying that it was not proper. They needed to be recalled when the state was facing farmers suicide, agrarian crisis and a major issue involving procurement of tur, Chavan pointed out to Modi.

“When Fadnavis was an MLA, he used to raise issues of farmers and demand loan waiver... now he is the CM and farmers are still demanding loan waiver... power has gone to his head,” says senior Congressman and Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil. “When legislators from all political parties in the state are united on this demand for farm loan waiver, the CM is busy referring the matter to the Centre. As against this, the BJP government in Uttar  Pradesh has announced loan waiver,” said Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde.

Reacting to the Congress and NCP demand of loan waiver and protests, Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil, however, said: “The Congress and the NCP need to explain why farmer suicides continued even after the 2008 and 2009 loan waiver. Our government is not against loan waiver but it has to be at an appropriate time.”

Vikhe-Patil and Munde have also petitioned Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao demanding that he should impress upon the government to convene a special session of legislature to discuss the issue of farmers and loan waiver. “The government is not keen on farm loan waiver nor is it interested in giving a proper price to the farm produce. Procurement of tur has not been done because of the government’s apathetic attitude,” said Vikhe-Patil.