Times of India: Nagpur: Thursday, December 21, 2017.
Chief
minister Devendra Fadnavis dropped a bombshell on Wednesday by revealing that
the list of beneficiaries of the earlier loan waivers announced by the then UPA
and DF governments in 2008 was unavailable. Turning the tables on the
opposition, he even called on them to demand such a list under RTI from his
government, but they would be unable to provide it, as it didn't exist.
The startling
revelation came while Fadnavis was replying to the marathon discussion under
Rule 293 moved by the opposition benches, which lasted over two days. He also
disclosed that many sugar factories had taken loans in the name of farmers,
without informing the farmers themselves, by submitting their 7/12 extracts to
banks during the UPA's loan waiver.
Citing
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, he pointed out that many
influential persons from Kolhapur and Satara were granted benefits in the UPA's
loan waiver. This included Yuvraj Patil, who received Rs38 lakh, and Vijay Sinh
Patil, who received Rs9.11 lakh. "I will provide the list of farmers being
given benefit by our government, unlike yours," he taunted.
When Jayant
Patil pointed out that many of these beneficiaries didn't receive the money,
after objections were raised and cases were pending in the Supreme and high
courts, the CM asked where all this money had gone, and hinted at a bigger scam
here. "We will inquire into this bungling. Our government has learnt from
your mistakes," he said.
While
admitting blunders in depositing loan waiver amount into accounts of
non-beneficiaries, including MLAs, he passed the buck to banks, for having sent
wrong names to the government. "It's true that the amount was deposited in
the account of MLA Prakash Abitkar, but it was the bank's fault since original
beneficiary was Prakash Sutar. We received about 37 applications with Abitkar
surname, of which one had initials of Prakash. Similar thing happened with
Vasant More, where original beneficiary was Latabai Patil."
Blaming the
banks for the mess, Fadnavis said the government had already inked a pact with
them for data validation of beneficiaries, and they would be completely
responsible for any error. "We haven't provided our data of farmers to
them. We asked them to prepare their own list after validating it. We then
matched it with direct applications invited from farmers. We initially received
over 1.03 crore applications. After biometric tests and removing duplication, about
77 lakh accounts were found to be genuine. After subtracting ineligible
beneficiaries as per our new norms, we've decided to deposit money into
accounts of about 67 lakh farmers."
Earlier, the
CM added to his figures of loan waiver, which he had announced last week while
replying to discussion on the same subject and on the same motion but moved by
the treasury benches.
He said about
48 lakh accounts had been cleared till Wednesday out of 67 lakh applications
received from farmers. Of them, 34 lakh were loan accounts while 14 lakh were
of those provided incentives for timely repayment of loans. Cumulatively, an
amount of Rs23,300 crore has been disbursed so far. "Since last week,
we've cleared 4.72 lakh more accounts and approved Rs2,578 crore payment under
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana and daily updation is
underway. There would be no discrimination between farmers, whether backing BJP
or NCP."
NCP leader
Ajit Pawar demanded action against sugar mills owners for duping farmers, and
even bank officials. On Hasan Mushrif's query, Fadnavis said the banks were
told to close those accounts and not to levy any interest.
Meet of MLAs
from drought hit areas today
Agriculture
minister Pandurang Phundkar announced that a meeting of MLAs from drought-hit
areas of Vidarbha would be convened on Thursday at 4pm. "After receiving
inputs from them, we will consult with the CM and take a decision to benefit
rice and cotton growers, whose crops were destroyed due to incessant rains or
bollworm and aphid attack."
Even the CM
endorsed him, saying that the government would announce a package before the
end of the winter session on Friday.
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