West Bengal showers sops for farmers

Bhubaneswar, January 1: With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced two new schemes for farmers and farm labourers.

Beginning January 2019, every farmer in the state will get Rs 5,000 per acre every year in two instalments from the agriculture department.

The Krisak Bandhu scheme will grant Rs 2 lakh to the kin of farmers who die due to any reason, including suicide.

Notably, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Pataink, who had attributed the BJP’s debacle in the five states to the Centre’s failure to protect the interests of the farmers, had launched Rs 10,000 crore Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme at the State Secretariat here on Monday.

The BJD government had refused to bite the farm loan waiver bait after Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan governments made similar announcements with Congress taking over the reins of these states, stating that it would push Odisha towards bankruptcy but the cry for ‘price, prestige and pension’ continued to echo in its ears.

According to analysts, the drubbing of BJP in the recent assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states, has shaken all political parties and incumbent governments, making them to rethink their farmer policy.

The KALIA seems like a splitting image of Rythu Bandhu Scheme, a welfare programme to support farmer’s investment for two crops a year by the Telangana government launched earlier in May this year.