Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 25

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet Aadhaar scheme, seen as a major weapon against corruption, is likely to get a quick burial in Maharashtra with the state government clearing waiver of farm loans not linked to the UID numbers.

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According to state government sources here, the move to junk the requirement to link all accounts of beneficiaries with their Aadhaar number has been taken by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis after data provided by banks carried fake numbers in many accounts.

“While several accounts were linked to single Aadhaar numbers, many had random numbers like 012345, etc,” says a source from the state co-operation department.

After the discrepancies came to light, the Maharashtra government ordered the waiver of loans to be halted till the entire list of applicants was verified. This, however, has proved to be a mammoth task with the government having received 1.05 crore applications from farmers while lending institutions came up with a list of 77.29 lakh farmers from about 56.59 lakh families who have defaulted on their loans.

State officials and executives of a private firm engaged to collate the details of farmers eligible for waiver of their farm loans have told the government that it would take at least six months to clean up the list.

The opposition parties and the ruling BJP's troublesome ally, the Shiv Sena, are using the occasion to put the government on the mat.

Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar accused the Fadnavis government of not trusting the data provided by the banks. Pawar felt that the government should ask for the list of beneficiaries from the banks and simply waive their loans off without waiting for too many formalities.

On the other hand, supporters of Fadnavis allege that many of the loans have been availed by bogus account holders from co-operative banks in the earlier years when the Congress-NCP coalition was in power.

But what seems to have made up the government's mind to expedite disbursal of the farm loan waiver without Aadhaar verification is the sudden spurt in suicide by farmers.

Data provided by the state government says 1,254 farmers have committed suicide between June and October after the farm loan waiver was announced.

The total number of suicides in the first ten months of this year is pegged at 2,414. Activists say they are getting reports of more suicides in the month of November.

The state government estimates the farm loan waiver amount at Rs 37,000 crore.