Farm loan waiver, Mumbai-Nagpur super highway to rock session

The ongoing farm loan waiver scheme and the land acquisition of the Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Expressway and the increasing crime graph are the key issues that would figure in the monsoon session of the Maharashtra legislature beginning Monday.

Though it would not be an easy sailing for Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, he would appear more confident as the results of the Presidential polls – where members of Congress or NCP had cross-voted in favour of BJP-NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind, the President-elect and not supporting the Congress-led Opposition candidate Meira Kumar, has come as a major boost to him.

With the Shiv Sena often playing the role of an Opposition within the government, the results are a major shot in the arm of Fadnavis, if one goes by the arithmetic post the results.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Krishi Samman Yojana – as the loan waiver scheme has been named – would be a major issue. In fact, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had expressed concerns over the slow pace of the implementation of the nearly Rs 34,000-crore scheme.  According to the scheme, loans of Rs 1.5 lakh for all farmers would be waived off - which would benefit 89 lakh farmers and nearly 40 lakh farmers would be totally debt-free.

The start date would be 1 April 2012 and cut off date would be 30 June 2016 - a period of four years.  Those farmers who had paid off loans would also be benefitted and they would get an incentive in form of a grant of Rs 25,000 or 25 per cent, whichever is lesser.

On the other hand, farmers are also opposing the Nagpur-Mumbai  Super Communication Expressway or the Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg, which is one of the ambitious infrastructure projects of the state. Already land is being acquired in Shahpur in Thane and Hingne in Nagpur – and for this money is being transferred to farmers through real-time gross settlement (RTGS) – a first in India. But Congress and NCP has raised concern over the project and the Shiv Sena which was vehemently opposed to it had made a U-turn.