Balasore: Addressing a campaign rally in the run up to phase-IV general elections at Remuna in this district, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Friday promised a ‘special budget’ for the farmers of the state, if Congress is voted to power.
According to Gandhi, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan will also be included in this special budget. This budget will be presented a day before the presentation of the national budget with special focus on the farmers of these states.
It will include a detailed roadmap to increase the MSP of paddy, plans for setting up of food processing units and market agricultural products along with all other provisions that would benefit the farmers.
He specifically assured that the MSP of paddy in Odisha will be increased to Rs 2600 per quintal.
Further, the Congress scion promised to enact a new law for the benefit of farmers that would have the provision not to put farmers in jail if they failed to repay the loan, if his party voted to power.
Speaking at the Parivartan Sankalp Samabesh here, the Congress president asked why the farmers should be sent to jail if they are not able to pay back their bank loan while big businessmen like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya were allowed to leave the country after duping banks of thousands of crores of rupees.
“We will conduct a surgical strike on poverty in the country by depositing Rs6000 per month in the accounts of a woman member of each of the five crore poor families in the country to make them financially sound. It will be provided to the poor families whose monthly income is less than Rs12,000,” he said speaking of his flagship NYAY scheme while adding that this scheme will highly benefit the poor of Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
Citing unemployment as the biggest issue before the country, he announced to fill up 22 lakh vacant posts within one year.