Bhubaneswar: A delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs Wednesday wrote to Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar alleging scam in disbursement of assistance under PM Kisan Scheme in Odisha.
The parliamentarians said that many of the 37,00,578 registered farmers under the scheme are deprived of the last few installments of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi released by the Centre.
The MPs accused the Odisha government of blocking the assistance from the Centre.
“An examination of this disconcerting trend of annually decreasing coverage of beneficiaries under the scheme in Odisha reveals that for the sixth installment, 12.93 lakh farmers have been deprived of their benefit as Odisha government has blocked their names for receiving the benefit, without any justification,” the joint letter said.
It also added that the Odisha government November 2019 had issued a circular stating that all small and marginal farmer beneficiaries identified under the KALIA scheme of the state government had been registered under PM Kisan Scheme and would be paid Rs 6,000 from the central scheme and the remaining Rs 4,000 in two installments under KALIA scheme.
“However, we are distressed and alarmed to note that till this day there is no integration of data pertaining to the beneficiary list of KALIA scheme with the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana portal,” the letter alleged.
The BJP MPs said that it was disappointing to note that these alleged unjustifiable inaccuracies and oversight of the state government in disbursement of benefits under the central scheme to the needy farmers of Odisha in the backdrop of COVID-19 caused hardships to the farmers of Odisha.
The MPs sought personal intervention of Tomar in the matter and asked him to instruct the officials concerned to institute a probe by a Central agency to look into the alleged ‘blunders’ committed by the state government in the implementation of the scheme.