Mumbai: The cash-strapped Maharashtra govt which faces a debt of Rs 11 lakh crore has yet not paid farmers two instalments of its Namo Shetkari Mahasanman Nidhi (NSMSN ) stipend amounting to almost Rs 3,700 crore as it was trying to prioritise the use of funds for its loan waiver programme.Minister of state for finance Ashish Jaiswal told TOI that the loan waiver was now the priority for the state. “The priority at this point is the loan waiver in which a large number of farmers will benefit. We can consider the NSMSN once the waiver is rolled out.” Indeed, officials said that the state might consider excluding farmers who were beneficiaries of the NSMSN from the loan waiver.tate agriculture minister Dattatray Bharane said the stipends would be disbursed soon. He said the proposal about the pending instalments reached the agriculture department only two days ago.Around 91 lakh farmers who are beneficiaries of the state’s NSMSN have not received stipends worth Rs 4,000 each for the nine month span between Dec 2025 and July 2026. On June 2, the state had introduced the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar loan waiver scheme which is estimated to cost Rs 36,585 crore. The NSMSN costs the state roughly Rs 5,800 crore annually.The NSMSN was introduced in June 2023 when Eknath Shinde was the chief minister to provide farmers with a Rs 6,000 stipend in three instalments during the year. It was to match the PM Kisan Yojana disbursed by the Centre.The Opposition has accused the govt of deceiving farmers. “This tactic of making a big show with one hand of giving under the guise of the loan away while snatching away farmer’s rights with the other is nothing but the outright deception of farmers,” said Congress’s Vijay Wadettiwar.Agriculture minister Bharane said the process of disbursing funds under the NSMSN had been initiated. “The agriculture department has initiated the necessary administrative procedures and the proposal is being processed on a priority basis. Once the formalities are completed, the amount of both instalments will be credited to the bank accounts of all eligible beneficiary farmers at the earliest,” he told TOI.The loan waiver scheme which was among the Mahayuti govt’s electoral promises made before the 2024 assembly polls. It is among the multiple sops introduced by the state govt which are straining the exchequer. Its pre-poll Mukhya Mantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana already costs the state over Rs 36,000 crore annually.
