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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 11:29:11 am

Fadnavis writes off Rs 48,000 crore

Mumbai: In a clear indication that the Maharashtra government is leaving no stone unturned to keep the state’s agrarian base happy, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has unleashed yet another massive populist measure. Hot on the heels of relaxing the eligibility criteria to ensure a blanket farm loan waiver, the Chief Minister announced a sweeping Rs 48,000 crore waiver on the pending electricity bills of farmers across the state. Addressing a ‘Krutadnyata Sohala’ (gratitude ceremony)...

Fadnavis writes off Rs 48,000 crore

Mumbai: In a clear indication that the Maharashtra government is leaving no stone unturned to keep the state’s agrarian base happy, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has unleashed yet another massive populist measure. Hot on the heels of relaxing the eligibility criteria to ensure a blanket farm loan waiver, the Chief Minister announced a sweeping Rs 48,000 crore waiver on the pending electricity bills of farmers across the state. Addressing a ‘Krutadnyata Sohala’ (gratitude ceremony) organized by the BJP Kisan Morcha at Mumbai’s Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan on Wednesday, Fadnavis declared that farmers using agricultural pumps of up to 7.5 horsepower will see their historical electricity dues completely wiped out. The announcement was met with the traditional sounding of the Tutari and thunderous applause from hundreds of farmers who had gathered from every corner of the state. The Chief Minister framed the mega-sop as a necessary step to “wipe the farmers’ slate clean,” enabling them to write a new chapter of prosperity. Calculated Pitch The timing and scale of the announcement underscore a government that is boldly embracing populist economics to solidify its political footprint in rural Maharashtra. While Fadnavis maintained that these decisions were taken purely in the interest of the farmers—pointing out that the original loan waiver was announced when no elections were in sight—the political undertones were unmistakable. Taking a sharp dig at the opposition, the Chief Minister accused rival parties of running “political shops” in the name of farmer agitations without understanding the government’s genuine intent. Asserting his grassroots connection, Fadnavis proudly claimed, “I do not make decisions sitting in my house. I am a farmer myself, a man of the soil.” He openly defended the government’s recent move to strip away the stringent conditions attached to the blanket farm loan waiver, signaling that his administration will not hesitate to clear bureaucratic hurdles if it means putting money directly into the hands of the rural voter. Balancing Sops Even as he rained freebies, the Chief Minister attempted to balance the populist optics with a dose of economic pragmatism. He acknowledged that handing out repeated loan waivers is a symptom of deep-rooted agrarian distress, not a permanent cure. Pointing to the Rs 95,000 crore in aid currently being pumped into the agricultural sector by the state and central governments, Fadnavis outlined his administration’s shift toward an investment-driven agricultural model. He championed the success of schemes like ‘Jalyukt Shivar’ and ‘Magel Tyala Shettale’ (farm ponds on demand), claiming these initiatives have already empowered farmers to harvest multiple crops a year. Addressing the core issue of farming costs, he noted that the government already subsidises power to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore annually. By coupling this with a push for solar pumps and solar agricultural feeders, he promised that 100 percent of the state’s farmers would receive uninterrupted daytime electricity by the end of the year. Infra Dream Looking beyond immediate financial relief, the Chief Minister laid out a grandiose vision to permanently drought-proof Maharashtra’s most vulnerable regions. A staggering Rs 6 lakh crore infrastructure pipeline is being planned to ensure the next generation never witnesses a drought. Fadnavis detailed ambitious river-linking projects, including the Wainganga-Nalganga link, to divert excess floodwaters to parched regions. The state plans to construct 24 new dams and raise the height of 16 existing ones to ensure not a single district in Vidarbha faces water scarcity. Furthermore, massive engineering feats are on the drawing board to divert 200 TMC of floodwater from Western Maharashtra to Marathwada, and lift 275 TMC of wasted water from the Ulhas basin to quench the thirst of North Maharashtra and Marathwada. By marrying immediate, massive debt relief with long-term infrastructure promises, the Fadnavis administration is aggressively cementing its pro-farmer narrative. As the Yashwantrao Chavan auditorium echoed with whistles and cheers, it became highly evident that the government’s strategy of pairing mega populist waivers with big-ticket rural dreams is striking a powerful chord with the state’s agrarian voters.

The Status Quo Is a Competitor, Not a Baseline

“You’re not competing with other ideas. You’re competing with “leave me alone”.

You’ve seen this happen. You call a meeting. You explain the logic. People nod. Some even say, “Yes, correct.” And then… nothing changes. Not a fight. Not a refusal. Not drama. Just a slow, polite slide back to the old way. Most leaders call this laziness. I don’t. I think it’s something more precise: The status quo is doing its job.


Quick recap if you’re joining mid-series

Week 1: You inherited an equilibrium, not a business.

Week 2: People don’t oppose improvement; they oppose loss disguised as improvement.

Now Week 3: even if you reduce the fear of loss, there’s another force sitting quietly

behind it: “Do nothing” is not neutral. It’s a protected strategy.


Which seat are you stepping into?

Inherited seat: People will smile and wait for your “phase” to pass.

Hired seat: People will test whether you can enforce, or whether you’ll get tired.

Promoted seat: People may agree publicly and revert privately because habits don’t ask permission.


Different entry doors. Same default: do nothing.


Shortcut Route

Every industrial area has that one shortcut road. It’s narrow, broken, sometimes risky. But it avoids signals and saves a turn. So, everyone keeps taking it even when a better road exists. That’s how organizations behave. Your “new process” might be cleaner and smarter. But the old route is familiar. And familiarity feels like safety.


Researchers call this status quo bias where we stick with what’s already in place even when a better option exists (Samuelson and Zeckhauser wrote about it decades ago). But you don’t need a paper to believe it. You just need to watch what happens after your first improvement announcement.


Do Nothing

Incoming leaders often treat the current way of working like a baseline: “Okay, this is where we are. Now we improve.” But inside the system, the status quo is not baseline. It’s a competitor. It protects people in very specific ways:

It keeps accountability soft: everything stays “situational”.

It preserves informal power: who can “manage”, who has access, who gets heard.

It avoids hard data, which avoids hard blame.

It keeps old loyalties intact.

It keeps flexibility for firefighting even if that firefighting is the problem.

So, when you introduce a new system, you’re not offering a better idea. You’re threatening a survival arrangement.

That’s why resistance here is rarely loud. It’s quiet. Continuous. Patient. The real competition is friction


Practical Truth

People don’t choose the best option. They choose the easiest option. This is where the idea of defaults matters. Thaler and Sunstein popularised it in Nudge: if you make something the default path, most people follow it … not because they love it, but because opting out takes effort.


In MSMEs, effort is expensive. Not because people are incapable—because they’re overloaded. Understaffed. Running on memory, calls, WhatsApp, and urgency. So “small extra steps” are not small. They become the place where change goes to die.

If your new system adds friction, the status quo wins.


New Behavior

Use these four rules:

1. Remove one step, don’t add one.

If your change adds steps, it will lose. Kill one existing step immediately (a duplicate approval, a manual register, a second reporting format).

2. Attach it to an existing moment.

Don’t create a new ritual. Piggyback on something that already happens (dispatch call, purchase huddle, daily production chat). Change travels on existing rails.

3. Make it visible and usable.

If the new behavior produces something people need (a live queue, a simple list, a shared status board), it becomes real. If it produces a report nobody reads, it becomes theater.

4. Create a soft gate.


Not punishment. A gate. Example: “Only logged quotations will be discussed in the pricing huddle.” Calm rule, consistently applied. No drama, no exceptions-by-loudness. If you do only this much, you’ll notice something powerful: adoption starts rising without motivation speeches. Because you stopped trying to win by persuasion and started winning by design.


(The writer is Co-founder at PPS Consulting. He writes about the human mechanics of growth where systems evolve, and emotions learn to keep up. Views personal. Write to rahul@ppsconsulting.biz)

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