Bhubaneswar: Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan came down heavily Friday on the BJD government in Odisha. The union minister accused the BJD government of denying benefits of the PM-Kisan Nidhi scheme to the state farmers.
Pradhan made the allegations against the two decade-old BJD government headed by Naveen Patnaik. The minister made the comments while addressing a meeting held as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s farmers outreach programme at Japa block in Jagatsinghpur district.
The minister said that the Centre has given Rs 60,000 crore to Odisha farmers through different schemes during the last six years. He said said the new farm legislations intended to make the farmers ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-dependant).
The minister also alleged that the Odisha government was not providing the final list of farmers so that they could gain from PM-Kisan Nidhi. He said every needy farmers get Rs 6,000 a year under the PM-Kisan Nidhi scheme.
Pradhan alleged that though the Centre provides a lot of money for the development of Odisha, the funds are misappropriated. “As part of Modi governments ‘Sushasan’ (good governance), the funds are directly credited to the bank accounts of farmers.
“However, it is unfortunate that the Odisha government is not sending the list of farmers eligible for the benefits under PM-Kisan Nidhi,” Pradhan said.
Terming it as unfortunate, Pradhan said the Odisha government is yet to submit a list of farmers for availing the fruits of the central programme. Initially, the Odisha government had submitted a list of 43 lakh farmers for the PM-Kisan Nidhi scheme and funds were released accordingly by the centre.
“However, I fail to understand why the state government is not sending the full and final list for PM-KISAN and is also keen on decreasing the number of farmers,” Pradhan pointed out.