Assuring farmers that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government would soon come up with benefits for cultivators who regularly repay their loans, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday said the committee formed in this regard would submit its recommendations to the government within a fortnight.
While the Uddhav Thackeray-led government has already announced an immediate waiver of loans up to ₹2 lakh per farmer, it constituted a seven-member committee headed by Mr. Pawar earlier this month to finalise benefits to farmers with crop loans of more than ₹2 lakh and those regularly repaying their loans.
“After we announced the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule farm loan waiver scheme, several farmers who regularly repaid loans and had never defaulted were left wondering why no benefits had been announced for them. However, I want to reassure them that our committee to look into their benefits has already had two meetings. Within the next 15 days, this committee will submit its recommendations,” Mr. Pawar said, during his visit to Nashik.
Tongue in cheek
The Deputy Chief Minister, who had a slew of review meetings with officials during his tour of north Maharashtra on Friday, reached Nashik with his customary punctuality well before his first event of the day, a ground-breaking ceremony scheduled at 7 a.m. Mr. Pawar’s swift appearance startled officials generally used to ‘latecomer’ ministers, prompting much hustle-bustle before the start of the event.
Taking a self-deprecatory jibe, Mr. Pawar remarked: “I apologise that you all had to come here so early, but I had a number of review meetings planned in Dhule, Nandurbar and other districts today… While one organiser doubted whether I would make it this early in the bitter cold, another reminded him that I had come very early for my swearing-in as deputy chief minister.”
Mr. Pawar’s disarming allusion to his temporary defection to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and his early morning coup when Devendra Fadnavis and he were respectively sworn in as the chief minister and deputy chief minister for a brief period, drew peals of laughter from the audience.
‘No rift with Chavan’
Mr. Pawar also downplayed reports of tensions between him and senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan, remarking that there was no rift between them.
He also expressed confidence in the three-party alliance, regardless of what its detractors said. “The Maha Vikas Aghadi government has been formed by three parties of differing ideologies. But we will complete our full tenure,” he said, adding that the government would also strive to eliminate any problems in the implementation of its Shiv Bhojan scheme.
