BHUBANESWAR: Targeting the Centre for delaying payment of crop insurance to the farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, BJD on Wednesday maintained that it is being released now after pressure from the farmers and continuous follow up by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Alleging that this has exposed the anti-farmer attitude of the BJP, BJD Rajya Sabha member and national spokesperson Sasmit Patra said that the saffron party had tried to stop the KALIA scheme during the 2019 election. Finally the scheme was cleared after the chief minister personally intervened and went to the office of the chief electoral officer in Bhubaneswar to explain about the scheme.
Stating that the BJD does not believe in doing politics on farmers issues, Patra said there are so many other matter for this. He said as the scheme is named as Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the insurance money will have to be paid by the Centre. But the Centre delayed it for so many months, he added.
Referring to the letter submitted by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday, he said there is no merit in it. Stating that HDFC was empanelled by the Centre, Patra asked how such a company was empanelled in the first place.
Stating that Pradhan should answer that first, and asked how is such a company then working in BJP ruled states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, Tripura and Maharashtra.
Patra said this is another classic example of how BJP is trying to mislead the farmers of Odisha by deflecting the fact that it was the Centre that was blocking the payment of crop insurance.