Three Risod farmers get no loan waiver despite being on first list and completing KYC

Three farmers in Risod taluka of Washim district have received no money in their accounts even though their loan waiver was sanctioned. They say their names are on the first beneficiary list of the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Shetkari Karjmukti Yojana and that they have completed the KYC process, yet the State Bank of India's Masla Pen branch has not given them the benefit.

Dnyaneshwar Sarnaik, Shyamsundar Khote and Gajanan Lokhande, from Dapuri and Keshavnagar, submitted a memorandum to the District Collector on Monday. They demanded that they be given justice without delay.

According to the memorandum, the names of all three appeared in the scheme's first list. Sarnaik completed KYC on July 27, Lokhande on July 28 and Khote on July 29. Despite this, the bank has not extended the loan waiver benefit. The farmers met the manager of the State Bank branch at Masla Pen several times to ask why the waiver had not been applied. The memorandum also says the bank advised them to ask the District Collector about it.

The farmers also described their difficulties. Their crops have already been damaged by inadequate rain and they are in financial distress. The government sanctioned the waiver but the money has not reached them, which has also closed off the route to a fresh crop loan. They said that although they qualified under the scheme, the benefit is stuck at the bank level and they are suffering financial and mental distress.

The three farmers have asked the Collector to issue urgent orders to the bank, to sanction their waiver as it has been for other eligible farmers, and to credit the pending benefit to their accounts immediately.

Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) has turned aggressive, saying the Rs 5,000 aid announced by the government for farmers hit by heavy rain and crop losses is meagre and incomplete. Its main demand is a flat Rs 1 lakh in financial aid to all farmers.

A rasta roko agitation will be held for this at 11 am on Friday on the Samruddhi highway at Vanoja Shelu Bazar in Mangrulpir taluka. Shiv Sena district chief Balaji Wankhede said the agitation, which covers all five districts of western Vidarbha, will be historic.

The agitation is being held on the orders of party chief Uddhav Thackeray. It has the guidance of western Vidarbha contact leader and MP Arvind Sawant and Washim-Yavatmal Lok Sabha contact chief Dilip Jadhav, while deputy leader and MLA Nitin Bapu Deshmukh will lead it. Wankhede said the agitation will protest the government's announcement of the meagre Rs 5,000 aid.