The Maharashtra government is working overtime trying to plug gaps in the Rs 60,000-crore loan waiver for farmers announced in the Union budget. As things stand now, Vidarbha, the state's worst-hit region which has seen nearly three suicides a day for the last two years, will benefit the least from the largesse to farmers announced by the Centre. Which is why, the state government is drawing up a supplementary plan so that its distressed farmers are brought into the ambit of the relief package. "We are seriously thinking and working on ways to address the Vidarbha crisis, either within or outside the loan waiver in the Union budget. The state will have to offer relief to farmers not eligible for the loan waiver," Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told Outlook. The state government is working on a twofold plan. The first involves going out on all cylinders to get the Union budget proposals amended for Vidarbha. Currently, the waiver applies to those with land holdings up to two hectares. The state government's draft proposal is to raise the land holding ceiling to 15 acres (approximately six hectares) because over half of the nearly 18 lakh farmers in Vidarbha have holdings that average 7.5 acres (about 3.03 hectares). The two-hectare cutoff immediately disqualifies them from claiming any relief. The proposal also pushes for a flat Rs 50,000 per farmer one-time waiver irrespective of land holding, as this would take care of most crop loans in Vidarbha. The proposal addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Union finance minister P. Chidambaram was submitted last week. Maharashtra MPs have been instructed to further push for these amendments during discussions on budget proposals in Parliament. The entire effort, say officials, is geared to ensure that Vidarbha gets a larger share of the waiver, or is included as a separate package in the Rs 60,000-crore waiver. Basic number-crunching by the state government led it to conclude that of the nearly Rs 10,000 crore that will accrue to Maharashtra as its share in the Rs 60,000 crore, barely Rs 536 crore