Pune: The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) plans to announce a complete farm loan waiver for all farmers in Maharashtra and a direct benefit transfer (DBT) of Rs 3,000 per month for women from the weaker economic sections in the state.
This announcement is most likely to happen at the first joint rally to be addressed by the MVA in the coming days. Both announcements will be included in the manifesto of the MVA as ‘promises to be fulfilled if the MVA comes to power in Maharashtra .
About The Direct Benefit Transfer
The DBT is estimated to cost the state exchequer about Rs 85000 crore, while the amount of the farm loan waiver is vet to be ascertained. It is likely to be over Rs 1 lakh crore. A top leader of one of the MVA alliance parties gave this information to the FPJ on Monday, saying, this big announcement is expected to again tilt the political equation in the state in favour of the MVA, which has been facing a setback since the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana was announced by the BJP-led Mahayuti government two months ago.
The MVA now feels that it exhibited confusion in reacting to the Mukhya Mantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, according to one of its partners. “We should have internally discussed how to react to the DBT scheme announced by the ruling alliance. First there was a negative reaction over the state’s financial condition but later, we decided to give DBT in some form. Recently, we sat together and finally decided we could come up with a bigger and better DBT scheme,” said the MVA leader.
Not A New Announcement
In the past, Maharashtra has seen announcements of farm loan waivers made by political leaders. About 23 years ago, politicians had promised free electricity to farmers in the state. However, there was a surge of complaints about the implementation of such schemes and the ground reality was that the loan waiver benefits did not reach most farmers. Now, the argument is that because of digitisation and data availability of the bank accounts of farmers, it is possible for governments to better implement these schemes.
The MVA wants all its leaders from the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SCP), PWP, SP and others to be present at the event when the announcement of the farm loan waiver and DBT of monthly Rs 3,000 for women will take place.
