Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced on Friday that the state government has removed the ₹2 lakh ceiling on overdue loans under the state's farm loan waiver scheme. According to reports from Business Standard, the scheme, which earlier covered overdue loans up to the 2025-26 financial year, will now include dues outstanding till 2026-27. The 'Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Farm Loan Waiver Scheme' is expected to benefit around 56 lakh farmers.
Defending the loan waiver, Fadnavis said the measure was aimed at helping financially-distressed farmers regain access to institutional credit. As reported by Business Standard, he rejected criticism that only ₹12,000 crore-₹13,000 crore would be disbursed and that 3.6 million farmers would miss out, stating the scheme would provide assistance worth ₹36,000 crore to 5.6 million farmers. The CM emphasized that such loan waivers do not make farmers prosperous but help prevent them from falling into the hands of private moneylenders.
Fadnavis explained that the 2019 Mahatma Jyotirao Phule farm loan waiver scheme had limited eligibility to overdue loans of up to ₹2 lakh, with farmers whose dues exceeded the cap by even one rupee not eligible. According to Business Standard, beneficiaries of the 2017 loan waiver were excluded from the 2019 Mahatma Phule scheme, while farmers covered under the 2008 national farm loan waiver were also excluded from Maharashtra's 2009 scheme. Around 320,000 farmers benefited under the 2019 scheme, with Maharashtra being the only state to have implemented major farm loan waivers in 2017, 2020 and 2026.
The CM highlighted the state's existing agricultural support, stating that the state provides an annual electricity subsidy of about ₹25,000 crore to farmers, while agriculture department subsidy schemes have a combined outlay of around ₹95,000 crore. As reported by Business Standard, the government plans to spend ₹20,000 crore in the first year, ₹22,000 crore in the second year and ₹25,000 crore thereafter as part of its overall support to the farm sector. Fadnavis also announced that farmers covered under the Mahatma Phule loan waiver scheme will also receive waiver benefits of up to ₹2 lakh.
Responding to demands from ruling alliance MLAs to remove the ₹50,000 repayment-related condition, Fadnavis said doing so would increase the burden on the state exchequer by ₹4,000-₹5,000 crore. According to Business Standard, he cautioned that repeated loan waivers could encourage delayed repayments and affect the financial health of cooperative banks. The CM said the government had consulted representatives of the banking sector before the scheme was finalised and described the extension of the overdue loan cut-off to the 2026-27 financial year as the first such decision taken by any state government.
