Though farmers received certificates confirming their eligibility for loan waivers last week, they might face difficulty getting their loans waived owing to inaccurate data submitted by from banks.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was informed at a meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee on Tuesday, that of the Aadhaar card numbers of farmers received by the State Information Technology Department, as many as 1.5 lakh are not unique. In many cases, farmers also share bank account numbers.
Mr. Fadnavis has called for an urgent meeting with officers of the State Level Bankers’ Committee on Wednesday. An official who attended the meeting said that out of the 8.40 lakh farmers who were to benefit from the first phase of the loan waiver scheme, only 3 lakh farmers were found to be eligible for the scheme.
A senior officer of the IT department, on condition of anonymity, said: “Apart from these discrepancies, the software also found that the farmers who have been regularly paying the loans have been shown to have outstanding loans. Only three lakh farmers are now eligible to benefit from the scheme in the first phase.”
Agriculture Minister Pandurang Fundkar admitted that there were discrepancies in the data received, bur did not confirm the number of farmers affected.
Mr. Fundkar said, “We have asked the IT and the cooperation department to work jointly and sort out the problems. Data made available from the banks seem inaccurate and need to be rechecked. Most problems are being solved.”
Mr. Fundkar said that farmers would benefit from the loan waiver scheme by October-end.