Launching a trenchant attack on the state government over the condition of farming and farmers in Odisha, the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on Wednesday alleged that the government has failed to improve farming and living standards of farmers despite budgetary allocations amounting to Rs 1.5 L crore since 2013 till date while about 61 percent of farmers in Odisha are reeling under debt burden.
Addressing a press meet in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday, BJP leader Rama Ranjan Baliarsingh made a caustic remark on the government, saying, “The longevity of the government is increasing but that of the farmers is declining. I am not saying this, but the WHO is claiming so. Similarly, the incomes of the governments are going up while those of the farmers are diminishing.”
The BJP leader said that the average monthly income of farmers at the national level stands at Rs 10,000 while it is Rs 5,000 in the case of Odisha farmers, of whom 61 percent are reeling under debt burden.
“Farmers in Odisha are bearing the burden of loans worth Rs 32,700 crore and one in every three persons is poor in an agrarian economy like Odisha. And this condition continues even after a whopping amount was allocated in agriculture budgets. What is most alarming is that Odisha is one of 12 states identified as drought-prone in the country,” Baliarsingh claimed.
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Alleging the perennial distress sale of paddy and massive irregularities in paddy procurement every year, the BJP veteran said that the poor farmers are still unable to get the right prices for their crops while almost every day reports of farmers committing suicide are coming; but the state government refuses to admit this harsh truth.
He also sought to know what the state government has done for irrigation in the last 23 years.
However, no response has been received from the concerned govt sources.