BHUBANESWAR: The State government on Wednesday told the Assembly that over 1.04 lakh beneficiaries of KALIA (Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation) have been identified as ineligible. Replying to a written question of BJD MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo said a total of 1,04,076 ineligible and 56,14,707 eligible beneficiaries have been identified after verification.
To another question of BJD MLA Prafulla Samal, the Minister said 36.5 lakh small and marginal farmers and families of 17.04 lakh landless agriculture labourers have availed benefits under the scheme.This is the third time the Minister is giving a different figure on ineligible beneficiaries under the scheme. In September 2019, the Minister revealed that 3.41 lakh of 51.05 lakh beneficiaries under KALIA scheme do not deserve the relief. However, in July last year, the government issued notices to 50,000 farmers asking them to refund money.
The government later decided to reverse its decision following severe criticism from BJP which asked the farmers not to refund the money. Informing that the complete list of KALIA beneficiaries is available at the official website www.kalia.co.in, the Minister said eligible farmers, who have not been included in the list as yet, could apply through the web portal with proper documents. He further said that efforts are on to include all the left-out eligible farmers under the scheme.
“The officials engaged in the scrutiny process have been asked to ensure that not a single deserving beneficiary is left out of the scheme,” he said. Patnaik sought to know how much fund from the State exchequer was wasted due to payment of KALIA assistance to over 9 lakh persons of 2,91, 880 ineligible families and one lakh beneficiaries not enumerated under socio economic caste census (SECC).
Recently, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik provided financial assistance of Rs 1,272 crore under the scheme to more than 53 lakh farmers of the State. It is not clear how many beneficiaries have so far received the assistance. Faced with a resource crunch to fund the KALIA scheme, the State government decided in December 2019 to reduce the annual assistance to Rs 4,000 from Rs 10,000.
Centre urged to fix MSP as per Swaminathan report
Bhubaneswar: Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Arun Sahoo on Wednesday reiterated the State government’s demand for implementation of the MS Swaminathan committee report on fixation of MSP for agricultural products. Replying to a question of BJD MLA Amar Prasad Satpathy, the Minister said the MSP is fixed by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices taking the views of all states. The price is fixed on the basis of national average. As cost of production varies from state to state, Odisha farmers are incurring huge loss because the cost of production is higher than the MSP fixed by Centre, he said.