In an agrarian country like India where more than 50% of the population is engaged in farming in some way or the other, the government always keeps the interest of farmers at priority in their manifesto. And why not! The government is responsible for fulfilling the demands of its citizens and the farmers help them to feed a population of whopping 1.3 billion!
Every year, new policies and subsidies are being launched to ensure the well-being of farmers. Not only is the Central Government taking steps to improve the strata of the farmers with initiatives like ‘Doubling farmers income’, but state governments are also coming up to give their share at their level. In this line, the Maharashtra government has taken a firm stand for the welfare of the farmers amid the tough times that farmers are facing because of the nationwide lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Whilst the whole world is battling with COVID-19, Maharashtra government has decided to relieve the farmers by giving loan waivers. The Thackeray government has given a sum of ₹ 12,000 crores to the farmers' accounts under the Kisan Karj Mukti Yojana.
Just after his government came into force, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray announced the ‘Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Karja Mukti Yojana’. Under this scheme, farmers are given loan waivers for a loan up to ₹ 2 lakh by the state government. About 32 lakh farmers will be benefitted from this scheme. The state government has remitted around ₹ 12,000 crores in the accounts of 18, 89,528 farmers.
Before this scheme, the government had also waived loans by depositing around ₹ 5500 crores in the bank accounts of 10, 40,935 farmers through district cooperative banks.
