Odisha Govt To Reduce Assistance To KALIA Beneficiaries!

Bhubaneswar: Confusion continues to prevail over the possible merger of the Odisha government’s flagship KALIA Yojana with the Centre’s PM-KISAN scheme.

While the state government is yet to make a formal announcement in this regard, a report by news agency PTI on Saturday said a notification has been issued where the Naveen Patnaik dispensation has announced slashing the financial assistance to farmers from Rs 10,000 per annum to Rs 4,000.

“Keeping the parity of both the schemes (KALIA and PM-KISAN), the small farmers/marginal farmers may be given with Rs 5,000 for 2019- 20 and Rs 4,000 per year from 2020-21, so that they will get Rs 10,000 annually i.e Rs 6,000 from PM-KISAN and Rs 4,000 from KALIA,” the report said quoting the notification of the Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment Department.

Arun Sahoo, the Minister who heads this department, has earlier this week said that there will be convergence of both the schemes. However, he had also added that some features under the KALIA yojana will still continue.

The notification has come even as some reports have claimed that the state government has already started disbursing the second instalment assistance under the scheme.

There is no clarity yet about the nomenclature of the merged scheme and if a fresh look will be given to the list of beneficiaries. Sahoo had informed the State Assembly that 45,965 beneficiaries have been detected as ineligible.

Quoting the notification, the PTI report said that all the eligible farmers will get assistance from PM-KISAN from 2019-20. It said that no assistance for Rabi-2019 will be given under the Kalia scheme to these farmers. It said that the beneficiaries, who have not yet received financial assistance during 2018-19 under KALIA scheme, will also be provided assistance for Rabi 2018-19.

“The actual cultivators (share croppers) who are landless, if any, will continue to get assistance from Kalia i.e Rs 10,000 annually since they are not considered under PM-KISAN,” the notification said.

This apart, the state government also made it clear that applications from big/large farmers will be collected through online as the big/large farmers are eligible to get assistance from PM-KISAN scheme, which is Rs 6,000 per annum.

It also said that since the KALIA scheme has been widely accepted by the farming community, it will be extended till the PM-KISAN scheme continues.