Bhubaneswar: Agriculture and farmers’ empowerment minister Arun Kumar Sahoo Wednesday faced criticism in the House over his failure to give satisfactory answers to queries of both Opposition and his own party members.
During Question Hour, Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati wanted to know about the number of farmer households in the state in 2010 and those in 2019. He also wanted to know if the number of farmer households has declined over nine years.
Sahoo in his reply said according to 2011 census, there were 32.8 lakh cultivators in Odisha. In addition, there were over 24 lakh farm labourers, he replied. However, the minister could not give data about the farmer households in the state now.
Congress legislature party leader Narasingha Mishra asked, “Without having any data on the number of share-croppers, small and marginal farmers, how did the state government implement the KALIA scheme?” Under the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme, each farmer household is entitled to get `5,000 per crop towards input cost for cultivation, maximum up to `25,000.
Replying to Mishra’s question, the minister said under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), nearly 22 lakh farmers have already availed the scheme. Later, many farmers have applied for the scheme. The agriculture department is analysing the details. So far, nearly 50 lakh farmers have received Kalia benefits in their accounts, the minister said. Not only Opposition members, senior BJD members Prafulla Samal and Debi Prasad Mishra joined the Opposition and sought clarifications from the minister on the matter. Samal wanted to know the procedure of identification of sharecroppers as the beneficiary of the KALIA scheme.
Similarly, Mishra asked the minister to reply how many farmers are there in the state as per 2001 census and whether it has declined or increased. The senior BJD lawmaker also wanted to know how many farmers have got benefited from the agriculture policy and how much interest subvention has been paid for allied sector farming. The minister did not reply to the questions of Mishra too.
In a written reply to a question of Congress MLA Suresh Routray, Sahoo replied that not a single farmer committed suicide due to farm-related reason over past three years. He informed Routray that the government has decided not to charge interest from farmers who have taken crop loan upto `50,000.
