Maharashtra sops to paddy farmers, 5 lakh likely to be benefitted

MUMBAI:  The Maharashtra cabinet on Tuesday decided to offer the Rs 1,500 per hectares as an incentive to paddy or food gains growing farmers, the maximum incentive will be for two hectares only.

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde said that the state government has earmarked Rs 1,000 crore to help the paddy – food grain growing farmers. He said this cabinet decision will benefit the five lakh farmers in the state. Earlier, the Maharashtra government used to offer Rs 700 per quintal incentive to paddy growers, but this scheme was misused.

“It was found out that to avail the benefit of this incentive scheme, the neighbouring states also started bringing their paddy to sale in Maharashtra. In this scheme, the farmers were allowed to sell off upto 50 quintal of paddy. But in most places, farmers availed the benefits for more than 50 quintal. The genuine farmers from Maharashtra were deprived,” revealed a senior government official.