The Odisha cabinet on Monday decided to carry on with the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme for three more years.
Giving a go ahead to the farmer welfare scheme, the cabinet approved a sum of Rs 5,933 crore to be spent on the scheme in the next three years. Each farmer family in Odisha under the ambit of ‘Kalia’ will be benefitted in the next three years, said the government.
The cabinet also approved a proposal to spend Rs 255 Crore on development of micro-irrigation projects and increasing income of the farmers.
Earlier, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had on September 21, 2021 released financial assistance of Rs 742.58 crore under the KALIA scheme to farmers on the auspicious occasion of ‘Nuakhai’. The assistance was released to over 37.12 lakh small and marginal farmers across the State for Rabi crop who received an assistance of Rs 2,000 in their bank accounts.
Pertinent to mention here that the State government had identified 1,04,076 ineligible beneficiaries of the KALIA scheme in February 2021.
The State Government had launched the scheme in 2019 to provide financial assistance to farmers for encouraging cultivation and associated activities. The programme covers about 92 per cent of the State's cultivators and almost all landless farmers.