ON July 10, 2026, the Government of Maharashtra finally announced the withdrawal of two restrictive conditions that had been imposed on the 2026 Farm Loan Waiver Scheme declared a month earlier on June 2. This marked a major victory for the farmers' movement in the state. It was the third major farm loan waiver wrested by the farmers of Maharashtra during the last one decade, from 2017 to 2026.

During the Assembly election campaign of 2024, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had promised that if his party came to power, it would grant a complete loan waiver to farmers. However, after assuming office in a rigged election, this promise was conveniently forgotten. This led to massive joint protests across the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of the state in October 2025. These two backward regions top the state in debt-related farm suicides. After large farmers’ conventions across the state, a mass joint rally of over 10,000 peasants, mainly from Vidarbha, and also from Marathwada, marched from Amravati to Nagpur on October 28, 2025, demanding a complete farm loan waiver. The joint rally included a large AIKS contingent. There was state repression, many were injured, but the farmers stood their ground.  

The state government was compelled to hold discussions with farmer leaders on October 29, 2025. Following intense negotiations, the Chief Minister finally announced that the farm loan waiver would be implemented by June 30, 2026.

RESTRICTIVE CONDITIONS

The state government constituted a committee headed by the Chief Minister's Economic Advisor, Praveen Pardeshi to work out the modalities of the waiver. However, the Pardeshi Committee's recommendations turned out to be primarily aimed at providing relief to banks and supposedly addressing Maharashtra's weakened economy rather than helping farmers. It recommended excluding farmers who had received the 2019 loan waiver, requiring regular borrowers to have maintained regular loan repayment for at least four years, and insisting that farmers first repay the portion of their outstanding loans exceeding Rs 2 lakh.

The committee even made the extraordinary recommendation of creating a Rs 5,000 crore "dedicated credit provision" to transport urban waste and dump it on agricultural land—an idea which was heavily criticised as likely to further damage farmland that was already damaged.

While unveiling the scheme on June 2, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis claimed that the loan waiver scheme would benefit 56.4 lakh farmers and provide loan relief worth Rs 36,000 crore.

In reality, under the loan waiver scheme, 12.71 lakh farmers who had already received a loan waiver in 2019 but had subsequently fallen back into debt due to natural calamities, were to receive only Rs 50,000 instead of a loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh. Similarly, 23.63 lakh regular loan-paying farmers were eligible for only a Rs 50,000 incentive grant, subject to stringent conditions, instead of Rs 2 lakh. Even there, they were required to have repaid crop loans in at least two of the financial years 2022–23, 2023–24 and 2024–25, and also had to repay crop loans during 2025–26 and 2026–27. Additionally, 2.9 lakh farmers were placed under a One-Time Settlement (OTS) scheme, which required them to first repay the portion of their outstanding loans exceeding Rs 2 lakh before becoming eligible for relief.

These three conditions together adversely affected 39.24 lakh farmers, approximately 70 per cent of all intended beneficiaries. Several other restrictive conditions were also imposed.

Based on these figures, the protestors effectively challenged the Chief Minister's claim that 90 per cent of farmers would benefit from the scheme. As a result, the movement gained even broader public support, and the agitation intensified.

VICTORY OF STRUGGLE

In the first week of June 2026, the AIKS publicly burned copies of the government's loan waiver notification in hundreds of villages across Maharashtra. Large demonstrations were organised outside tehsil offices throughout the state. A memorandum was submitted by the AIKS leadership to the State Agriculture Minister Dattatraya Bharane in Pune.

NCP MLA Rohit Pawar began a hunger strike at Pandharpur, and the AIKS state leadership extended its support by joining the protest. A rally was organised in Sambhajinagar. Another farmer leader Ravikant Tupkar also undertook a hunger strike and attempted to enter the State Legislature building. On July 10, in the Legislative Assembly, CPI(M) MLA Vinod Nikole staged a protest by displaying placards and addressed the media demanding the removal of conditions in the loan waiver scheme. Leaders of several other opposition parties also strongly raised the issue.

In the first week of July 2026, the state government itself called farmer leaders for a meeting in Mumbai to discuss their opinions about the scheme. However, five minutes before the meeting, a message came from the Chief Minister’s Office that the meeting had been cancelled. This created great anger among the farmer leaders. Large demonstrations of thousands of farmers took place all over the state on July 9-10 against this casual attitude of the rulers.

Finally, on July 10, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had to declare an increase in the loan waiver for 12.71 lakh farmers—those who had received a loan waiver in 2019 and had again become eligible in 2026—from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh each. The government also had to withdraw the condition requiring 23.63 lakh regular loan-paying farmers to repay their loans during the financial year 2026–27. As a result, a total of 36.34 lakh farmers became eligible for relief.

Although these two major conditions were removed, the demand that regular loan-paying farmers should receive a loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh instead of a mere incentive grant of Rs 50,000 remains pending.

Sugar factory workers, electricity board employees, workers in milk cooperatives and spinning mills, as well as elected representatives from poor families, have also been excluded from the loan waiver scheme. Continued struggle is therefore necessary on these issues as well.

THIRD LOAN WAIVER IN A DECADE

Since 2017, sustained and determined struggles in Maharashtra, jointly and independently by the AIKS, have enabled farmers to secure loan waivers on three separate occasions. It reflects the strength of the farmers' movement and its ability to act as an organised pressure group.

The novel statewide farmers' strike that began on June 1, 2017, at Puntamba village (in which farmers refused to bring their milk, vegetables and fruits to the city markets for 11 days), followed by the successful Maharashtra Bandh on June 5, compelled the government to announce its first major loan waiver scheme worth Rs 18,762 crore covering 44.04 lakh farmers. In March 2018, the AIKS-led Kisan Long March from Nashik to Mumbai by over 50,000 peasants highlighted loan waiver demands along with the major victories won by it on the Forest Rights Act (FRA) implementation issue. Partly as a result of this, in 2019, the Uddhav Thackeray-led state government waived loans worth Rs 20,500 crore covering 32.29 lakh farmers. In 2022, under the same scheme, incentive grants totaling Rs 5,249 crore were provided to 14.50 lakh farmers. Thus, taken together, a total of 46.79 lakh farmers received loan waiver worth Rs 25,749 crore under this scheme. 

Now, in 2026, the state government claims that it will provide loan waivers worth Rs 36,000 crore to 56.4 lakh farmers, although the actual number of beneficiaries and the amount disbursed is likely to be a little lower because of the remaining few eligibility conditions. The farmers of Maharashtra have succeeded in securing these loan waivers through assertive farmers' unions, effective political pressure, strategic planning, and persistent struggle.

FUNDAMENTAL SOLUTIONS NECESSARY

Apart from these loan waivers, the government's anti-farmer and pro-corporate policies have persisted. The pro-corporate crop insurance scheme has left farmers helpless during natural disasters. Corporate companies have been given a free hand to exploit farmers through agricultural services and farm inputs, resulting in rising production costs. The government has also continued to delay transferring ownership of cultivated land to the farmers who actually till it. At the same time, even land legally owned by farmers is being acquired for various projects and handed over to corporate companies. As a result, the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra has continued to deepen, and farmer suicides have kept increasing.

Meanwhile, the Modi government has reneged on its 2014 promises of a remunerative MSP guarantee and a nationwide loan waiver. While crores of farmers in distress have not been granted any central loan waiver, this same government has shamelessly written off loans worth a whopping Rs 16.35 lakh crore given to corporates in the last one decade. The Modi government has signed (or is will be signing) a slew of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with USA, EU, UK and New Zealand that will be disastrous for crores of our farmers, workers and MSME entrepreneurs.     

All these and other anti-farmer policies need to be abandoned and long pending policy demands of farmers, including those related to MSP, land acquisition, etc., need to be adopted. Loan waivers may provide relief, but the roots of the agrarian crisis need to be addressed.