BJP slams Odisha state govt for low coverage

BHUBANESWAR: BJP on Saturday charged the state government for depriving a large number of farmers from the benefit of financial assistance under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) Yojana. While over 40.93 lakh farmers have been registered under the scheme, not a single time all the farmers have got the financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year since the launch of the scheme in December 2018.

The Centre has been transferring Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installments, every four month to the bank accounts of farmers’ through direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode. Only 9,73,860 farmers received the December-March instalment in 2018-19. In the current financial year, around 87 per cent of the farmers (over 35.49 lakh) received Rs 2,000 each for April-July while the number came down to 22.42 lakh during August-November which is 55 per cent of the total registered farmers.

The state government is not updating data of individual farmers in the PM-Kisan portal on regular basis. Those farmers are not getting their share of the Central assistance is because of data mismanagement. This is a deliberate attempt to frustrate the Central scheme, said BJP spokesperson Anil Biswal.

State BJP Krushak Morcha president Pradip Purohit said the Centre is repeatedly writing to the state to provide details of farmers but the state government is paying no heed to it. This shows the anti-farmer attitude of the BJD government.