Bhubaneswar: Answering an unstarred question by BJP MLA Nauri Nayak, Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment Minister Arun Sahu on Wednesday informed Odisha Assembly that the State government has spent Rs 6690 Cr in three years on Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme.
As per Sahu's statement, Rs 2175.66 crore was spent on the benefits for 51.5 lakh farmers in the year 2018-19. Similarly, Rs 3243.1 crore was the expenditure in 2019-20 and Rs 1272.19 core has been spent in the year 2020-21 till February 2021.
In a related question about how many sharecroppers are there in the State and what have been done for their upliftment, the Minister said, "As per the Agricultural Census 2015-16, there were 9,05,184 sharecroppers, 36,36,658 marginal farmers, 8,87,272 small farmers, 337945 medium farmers and 3975 big farmers in the State."
Schemes like 'Balaram' and KALIA have been floated by the department to aid the financially weak and landless farmers.
(Edited By Suryakant Jena)