The Mamata Banerjee led West Bengal government on Monday announced two welfare initiatives for farmers. Both welfare schemes, which are part of the ‘Krishi Krishak Bondhu’ scheme, will come into effect from New Year’s Day i.e. January 1.
“The first of the two initiatives will provide ₹2 lakh to the family of a deceased farmer, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters at the Secretariat” Under the second initiative, farmers would get ₹2,500 twice a year for growing a single crop on one acre of land, she said.
The Trinamool Congress-led government in the state has already waived tax and cess on agricultural land “to help farmers in distress”. If a farmer aged between 18 to 60 years dies a natural or unnatural death, the state government will pay his family Rs 2 lakh,” Mamata Banerjee said.
W. Bengal CM: We’ve announced 2 programmes; first is for crop insurance where premium will be paid by state govt. In second we’ll give Rs 5000 per acre annually to farmers, also in case of death of a farmer b/w age of 18-60, compensation up to Rs 2lakh will be given to the family pic.twitter.com/s8CyMu0sck
— ANI (@ANI) December 31, 2018
“We have a total of 72 lakh farmer families in the state. We do not want them to suffer. We will start the scheme from tomorrow and the farmers will be able to start applying for the same from February 1,” she said.
Elaborating on the other initiative, Banerjee said the government will provide each farmer Rs 5,000 in two installments for growing any particular crop on one acre. They will be able to apply for this scheme from February 1, the amount will be calculated from January 1, 2019,” she said.
Banerjee has pointed guns at the saffron party and accused the BJP-led centre government for making false claims of providing crop insurance to farmers in West Bengal and said the state has paid 8percentnt of the insurance payout.
The move came in the backdrop of the farm loan waiver in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh where Congress after registering a resounding victory soon announced the farm loan waiver fulfilling its pre-poll promise. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath soon after taking writes off farm loans, similarly in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Recently, her Counterpart Odisha Cabinet also approves ₹10,000 crore financial aid to farmers. Odisha State Cabinet approved ‘Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation’ (KALIA) scheme amounting to over Rs 10,000 crore covering 92 percent of Cultivators. Under KALIA, an amount of Rs 10,180 crore will be spent over a period of three years till 2020-21. The scheme will be reviewed in 2020-21 for further modifications.
BJP too has stepped up doling out sops for the farming community. Jharkhand has also announced a cash assistance of Rs 5,000 per acre to over 22.76 lakh small and marginal farmers across the state. The money will be directly transferred to their bank accounts.