On June 1, the farmers of Maharashtra went on a strike, demanding a complete waiver from farm loan & price hike on agricultural products. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had a word with the Representatives of Farmers on June 2 and promised a loan waiver to all the farmers who have five acres of land, to be implemented before October 31. Maharashtra Government has formed a committee who will be focusing on the area of debt relief. This committee was specially set up Devendra Fadnavis and is led by Chandrakant Patil.
On 23rd August 2017, the first meeting was conducted with the respective members. The meeting was attended by Subhash Deshmukh (Cooperative Minister), Chandrakant Patil (Revenue Minister), Pandurang Phundkar (Agriculture Minister), Divakar Rao (Transport Minister), Girish Mahajan (Water Resources Minister), Additional Chief Secretary of the Finance Department, Additional Chief Secretary of the Department of Co-operation, among many others.
The following points were discussed in the meeting:
- By 15th September 2017, all the farmers should go to the nearest e-facility centre and submit the loan waiver application
- Currently, 22, 40,943 farmers have been registered and 18, 85,457 farmers have filled online applications as per the record till 22 August 2017
- From 1st October, money would be credited to the farmer’s bank account