rajiv gandhi kisan nyay scheme: Rs 1,500 cr paid to farmers under Kisan Nyay Scheme: Baghel

Raipur: Rs 1,500 crore had been transferred to the bank accounts of around 19 lakh farmers in Chhattisgarh under the first installment of Rajiv Gandhi Kisaan Nyay Yojna, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said on Thursday. A total of Rs 5,750 crore will be disbursed to 19 lakh farmers of the state in four installments under the scheme.

The first installment of Rs 1,500 crore was transferred into farmers’ bank accounts, he said.

The scheme, which aims to provide good returns to farmers for their produce and encourage crop production, was launched by Congress President Sonia Gandhi through video conference on Thursday afternoon.

The inauguration, which coincided with former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s death anniversary, was held here at Baghel’s official residence and attended by Rahul Gandhi and other central Congress leaders thorough video conference.

Under the scheme, sugarcane farmers will get a grant of Rs 13,000 per acre and paddy growers will get Rs 10,000 per acre, the chief minister said.

90 per cent of the beneficiaries are marginalized farmers, the poor and those belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class (OBC), he said.

“We have also decided to include landless agro-labourers in the second phase of the scheme and have constituted a committee headed by the chief secretary to prepare a detailed action plan for it,” he said.

During the 18 months of Congress rule, nearly Rs 40,700 crore were transferred into farmers’ accounts in the form of payment against paddy procurement, loan waiver, crop insurance, irrigation tax waver and bonus, Baghel said.

“We hope that in the next four years, we will be able to remove the blot of being the poorest state in the country,” he asserted.

Source: indiatimes.com