Bhubaneswar: Beneficiaries under the KALIA (Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation) scheme will get the first phase disbursal of their monetary assistance from January 26, informed Odisha Cooperation Minister Surya Narayan Patro here today.
Patro was talking to media when said the payment of the monetary assistance will be limited to only 12.4 lakh farmers already registered under Cooperation and having active farm related transactions. The assistance will be credited directly to their accounts, he added.
For those farmers who have applied under the KALIA scheme fresh, the financial assistance will be granted only after the due verification and scrutiny of the application forms, the minister maintained.
Notably, on December 21 last year, CM Naveen Patnaik announced the KALIA scheme in response to farmers’ loan waving by a number of Congress ruled states in the country after recent Assembly Poll success. He termed the scheme as ‘progressive and a direct attack on poverty’. The scheme was launched on December 31 in the same year.
The scheme covers over 30 lakh small and marginal farmers in the state. Beneficiaries will be given Rs 10,000 per family (Rs 5,000 each for Kharif and Rabi seasons) to take up cultivation, as per the provision in it. As a comprehensive coverage the assistance will be provided for five cropping seasons.
To benefit about 92% of the farmers in the Odisha Government has earmarked Rs 10,180 crore under the scheme to be spent in three years.
Ms Kalinga