Odisha Agriculture Minister Arun Sahoo fumbles on KALIA list

BJD member Prafulla Samal wanted to know the procedure of identification of sharecroppers as the beneficiary of the KALIA scheme.
Odisha Legislative Assembly
Odisha Legislative Assembly

BHUBANESWAR: Agriculture and Farmer Empowerment Minister Arun Sahoo had a tough time to explain the members on selection of beneficiaries under Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme when the state government has no latest database on people working the in the farm sector.

Responding to a query from Congress member Tara Prasad Bahinipati, the Minister said around 57 lakh people of the state are dependent on agriculture as per 2011 census.

While 32.8 lakh of them are farmers, the remaining 24.2 lakh people are agricultural workers.

Congress Legislature Party leader Narasingh Mishra sought to know from the Minister how without having any recent data on number of farmers, including small and marginal and sharecroppers, the state government implemented KALIA scheme.

Replying to Mishra, the Minister said under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), nearly 22 lakh farmers have already availed the scheme in the first phase.

The assistance has been extended to over 51.05 lakh farmers and it has been targeted to cover 23.94 lakh farmers in the current financial year taking the total beneficiaries to 75 lakh.

Since many more farmers have applied for the benefit, their applications are under scrutiny. The exact number of beneficiaries will be known only after verifications of the applications, he added.

Under the scheme, each farmer household is entitled to get Rs 5,000 per crop for input cost for cultivation.

The issue was raised during Question Hour in the Assembly when Bahinipati wanted to know about the number of farmer households in the state in 2019 as compared to 2010.

He also wanted to know if the number of farmer households has declined over nine years due to wrong agriculture policy of the state government.

The Minister said government is making efforts to encourage educated youths to take up farming as a full-time job.

Senior BJD members Prafulla Samal and Debi Prasad Mishra joined the opposition and sought to know about Government subvention to allied sectors other than agriculture as a large number of people are involved in many non-farm activities. 

Samal wanted to know the procedure of identification of sharecroppers as the beneficiary of the KALIA scheme.

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