Berhampur: With farmers suicide continuing unabated in drought-hit Odisha, Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress (KKMC), the farmers' wing of Congress, today asked the state government to provide at least Rs 300 per quintal of paddy as an incentive to farmers during procurement.
"The incentive should be provided to the farmers over and above the minimum support price (MSP) fixed by the government.
It will provide some relief to farmers facing crop failure caused by drought situation across the state," KKMC's state unit president Amiya Kumar Patnaik said here.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had recently declared Rs 100 per quintal as incentive to farmers in drought-hit areas during paddy procurement, he said adding incentive at Rs 100 per quintal is very meagre.
Moreover, very few farmers will be benefitted from this as the government has identified only 139 out of 314 blocks in the state as drought affected. "We demand that the government declare the entire state as drought affected and extend the incentive to all farmers," he said.
A delegation of Congressmen led by Amiya Patnaik visited the house of Lochan Bhuyan (55), a sharecropper in Singipur, who had recently committed suicide by consuming pesticide. He also asked the government to provide at least Rs 10 lakh to the family of the deceased farmer and to bear medical treatment of his ailing son besides, education of his two grand children, he said.
On Saturday, a CPI-M delegation led by party's state secretary Ali Patnaik had visited his house and interacted with the family members on the circumstances under which he had committed suicide.