Jharsuguda: After the launch of KALIA Yojana, about 63,000 farmers are keeping their fingers crossed over benefits of the scheme in Jharsuguda district amid an awareness campaign by the state government. The state has claimed that the scheme would benefit small and marginal farmers, sharecroppers and landless farmers.
However, agriculture experts and intellectuals doubt how far the administration will fulfil their expectation through the scheme with application numbers rising. The total is expected to touch 1 lakh in a few days. Another problem is sharecroppers, who have not yet been identified in the district.
Reports said, in the first phase, names of 22,381 farmers have found a place in the probable list of beneficiaries of KALIA. By Thursday, 63,890 farmers have applied for the scheme. Their number could rise in the coming day as the deadline for submitting applications has been extended till January 15. At the end of the last day, the number of applicants can easily touch one lakh.
Experts say it will be a tough task for the administration to pick up the deserving beneficiaries from a huge number of aspirants.
As per the 2015 agriculture report, the district has 87,783 hectares of land in the district. Of them, 47,750 hectares are meant for paddy farming while the rest 40, 0033 hectares for cash crops.
The report says the district has 24,309 small farmers, 13,059 marginal farmers and 18,562 farmhands. After 2015, no survey has been done to enumerate the number of farmers and farmhands in the district.
The huge number of farmers expecting benefits of KALI against the probable list of 22,382 will cause a lot of problems for the administration in the first phase.
Now, more and more farmers are applying for the scheme. Thirty-two farmers in Jharsuguda block, 27 in Lakhanpur block, 66 in Kolabira block, 79 in Kirmira block and 71 in Laikera block had applied for the scheme Wednesday.
PNN