The Congress on Monday alleged that the ruling BJD is using the KALIA scheme for political mileage and the Government is misleading people by presenting wrong facts about the scheme’s beneficiaries in the State Assembly.
Party State spokesperson Satya Prakash Nayak, at a Press conference at the Congress Bhawan here, slammed Agriculture Minister Arun Sahoo for sharing wrong facts in the Assembly thereby violating the dignity of the House.
Nayak urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to take action against the Minister.
“The Minister tried to hide the genuine number of beneficiaries while replying to a question raised by MLA Aswini Kumar Patra. As per information obtained through RTI, there are 1,72,908 ineligible KALIA beneficiaries in 10 districts. But the Minister stated that there are only 45,965 ineligible beneficiaries,” Nayak said.
Quoting RTI figures, Nayak detailed that there are 15,255 ineligible beneficiaries in Koraput district, 18,552 in Khordha, 19,980 in Ganjam, 14,017 in Mayurbhanj, 37,759 in Subranapur, 20,010 in Cuttack , 9,852 in Malkangiri, 11,542 in Sundargarh, 10,050 in Sambalpur and 15,891 in Jagatsinghpur.
“The Congress will bring a complete data of ineligible beneficiaries in all 30 districts soon,” he added.
In response, Agriculture Minister Sahoo said, “I do not have any such data what the Congress is talking about. I will comment on the matter once I receive it.”