Days after Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s announcement of farm loan waiver package for small and marginal farmers, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has requested the Centre to amend the present conditionalities and delink the loan waiver from the land-holding size as announced in the Budget speech.

At a meeting between the state Government and the Planning Commission on Wednesday to discuss and finalise the annual plan for the state, the CM is learnt to have told Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia that the loan waiver announcement did not distinguish between land holdings in irrigated and dry land areas.

The FM in his Budget speech had said “for marginal farmers (i.e holding up to 1 hectare) and small farmers (1-2 hectare), there will be complete waiver of all loans”.

In Deshmukh’s assessment, the impact of indebtedness on a farmer with a larger land holding in a dry area would be more as compared to a farmer with even a smaller land holding in an irrigated area.

In that regard, while one of the suggestions is to link the waiver to an overall monetary ceiling, another alternative is to raise the land holding size beyond two hectares for farmers owning land in dry areas.

It is learnt that the Centre sees an element of inequity in the conditionalities in their present form and the matter would be taken up by the Centre before the package is finalised. Apart from Maharashtra, other states have also put forward similar demands, say officials.

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