Congress comes out with white paper on Odisha drought situation

Summary: While the cooperative banks disburse around Rs 10,000 crore annually commercial banks distribute another Rs 2500 to Rs 3000 crore.

With Odisha affected by crop loss in over 5.32 lakh hectare of land due to drought and subsequent series of farmer suicides, Odisha government today asked the Centre to reduce the interest rates on agricultural loans and extend interest incentive on crop loan. “In fact, rather than submitting report to the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare, the state government has just written two letters to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister regarding the issue which is not enough to get the assistance”, added Pradhan.

While the present daily wage rate for unskilled labourers in Odisha fixed by Centre is Rs.174, the state government would provide Rs. 52 as drought allowance from its own resources totaling Rs. 226 to be paid to the workers under the scheme, he said.

With the state facing a drought situation, the Odisha government has made a decision to convert the crop loans advance during Kharif season as medium term (conversion) loans to mitigate the drought situation, the chief minister said. The BJD government had announced similar aid of Rs 100 per quintal aid after cyclone Phailin. While Rs 1500 crore will be spent on medium irrigation project (MIP) in Ong river near Padampur, another Rs 300 crore would be spent another MIP in Jeera river, he said.

In the white paper, Congress squarely blamed the state government for failing to improve the plight of the farmers. Opposition political parties found nothing new in Naveen’s announcements.

“BJD had promised interest rate of one per cent in its 2014 manifesto”.

The white paper, released in the presence of AICC General Secretary B K Hariprasad, said unfortunately the BJD government, instead of bringing succour to the distressed farmers, did not hesitate to mock at peasants who committed suicide due to crop loss and debt burden in the last three months. “This effort will free western region from drought for all time to come”, Patnaik said.