16 December,2017 03:56 PM IST | Nagpur | Dharmendra Jore
MLAs, MPs, government officials and anyone who pays income tax have been excluded from the welfare scheme; Prakash Abitkar's name was included as a beneficiary
The government proposes and the system disposes. This is what seems to be dogging CM Devendra Fadnavis' much-ambitious farm loan waiver scheme. On Friday, a Shiv Sena MLA revealed that he was included as a beneficiary despite not being eligible for any relief.
Prakash Abitkar
As per norms, MLAs, MPs, government officials and anyone who pays income tax have been excluded from the welfare scheme. Despite this, the Sena's Kolhapur MLA Prakash Abitkar's name was sent to the government for approval. If cleared, the MLA will get Rs 25,000 as incentive for servicing his farm loan regularly. The scheme has two components - one in which a debt-ridden farmer gets a waiver upto Rs 1.50 lakh and the second in which a non-defaulter gets Rs 25,000 as incentive.
Abitkar said he got a call from his credit society which loans him an amount every year, that he was listed as a beneficiary. "Not only me, but I found some people who are government employees in the same list. This is a serious lapse on the administration's part. I have brought this mistake to the government's notice in the house. I'm not eligible and hence I don't want any money from the government," he said.
The NCP lapped up the flaw. The party's MLA Jayant Patil accused the government of irregularities and demanded a probe. His party colleague Bhaskar Jadhav said the CM has been tom-tomming about transparency in loan waiver scheme. "The CM says they have filtered fraudulent applications. But what is this? Now a ruling party MLA gets the benefit. We don't know how many beneficiaries like these are there across the state. The CM is fooling us," he said.
