Farm loan waiver derailed by data disaster, 656K still waiting

MUMBAI: Eight years after being promised farm loan waivers, around 656,000 farmers in Maharashtra are still waiting, all because a portal switch caused their data to get corrupted.

The state cooperation department, responsible for implementing the scheme, has admitted to what they are calling a “technical failure”. Minister Babasaheb Patil, who heads the department, claims they are still working to resolve the issue.

In a double whammy, these farmers, whose loan waivers have been pending since 2017, were rendered ineligible for a waiver under the successive MVA government, two years later, as their applications were pending under the earlier scheme, a government official revealed.

The loan waiver was unveiled by the first Devendra Fadnavis government, on June 24, 2017, after a hunger strike by agriculturists. Named the ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana’ (CSMSSY), the ₹34,022-crore scheme was expected to cover 8.9 million farmers who were struggling with rising debt due to crop failure, drought, among other reasons.

Under the scheme, each farmer family was to receive a maximum benefit of ₹1.5 lakh. Agriculturists who were repaying loans on a regular basis were also promised a cash-back incentive of up to ₹25,000. A total of 5.1 million farmers were found eligible.

In the interests of transparency and to guard against corruption, the farmers were told to file their applications online – and that’s where the problem began.

What actually happened

The state government started accepting the applications through its online portal — Mahaonline. Around 5.1 million farmers were found eligible, applications were processed and the waiver was granted to 4.44 million eligible farmers. However, in September 2019, the election code of conduct for the state assembly elections was announced, temporarily suspending the scheme.

Its implementation resumed after the assembly elections but, soon, the state government shut the Mahaonline portal in favour of another portal to be set up by the Maharashtra Information Technology Corporation Limited (MahaIT), which was providing expert resources to all the government’s departments. Currently, MahaIT also handles websites such as Aaple Sarkar, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Mahanet (Bharatnet), Aadhar Enrolment Agency, Single Window Approval System for Film Shooting, among others. To keep the farm waiver rolling, the government instructed MahaIT to port the farmers’ data so that the cooperation department could resume implementation of the scheme.

Who is responsible?

Here’s where the process broke down. MahaIT was unable to transfer the data from Mahaonline as it got corrupt, sources in the government disclosed. The state cooperation department has been following up but is yet to make any headway. “We have written several letters to MahaIT but are yet to receive a positive response. The last one was sent in January,” said a senior official.

Confirming this, state cooperation minister Babasaheb Patil told Hindustan Times, “The data from Mahaonline could not be retrieved. This is the reason the farmers have yet not received the benefit of the loan waiver scheme. The state government is prepared to fulfill its promise and the waiver will be issued as soon as the data is recovered.”

State information technology (IT) secretary Parrag Jain Nainutia, who is also chairman of MahaIT, tossed the issue back to the cooperation department, saying the latter is primarily responsible for implementing the waiver. “We are in a supporting role in this matter. The state cooperation department is best placed to shed light on what is going on,” Nainutia told HT.

Officials from the state cooperation department said they had distributed over ₹18,500 crore to 4.44 million farmers under the CSMSSY, so far – 87% of the farmers found eligible. To provide loan waiver assistance to the 656,000 pending applications, the department will require an additional ₹5,975 crore.

“In contrast, under the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Shetkari Karzmukti Yojana (MJPSKY), another farm loan waiver scheme under the Uddhav Thackeray-led government in December 2019, the benefits were given to 3.22 million farmers. That works out to 99.53% of the total 3.24 million farmers eligible under the scheme,” the official said.

In March last year, then chief secretary Nitin Kareer directed MahaIT to retrieve and collate the data of the eligible farmers but that is yet to happen.

As various government agencies and departments pass the buck, farmers’ groups are furious at the “government apathy”. “The farmers have been running from pillar to post for the waiver, for years. They were also not eligible for another waiver scheme under the Uddhav Thackeray government, and unwittingly fell into the clutches of private money lenders,” said Raju Shetti, who heads the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana, a farmers’ organisation. “The government cannot shrug off its responsibility. They must find a way out,” said Shetti, a former member of Parliament.

This is the second loan waiver scheme that has hit farmers hard. Recently, the Fadnavis-led Mahayuti government reneged on its promise to waive crop loans taken by farmers. The waiver was a major election promise made by the BJP-led Mahayuti government late last year. So, when deputy chief minister and state finance minister Ajit Pawar asked farmers to pay up, stating that every election promise need not translate into action, farmers were both angry and dismayed.