The BJP on Tuesday dared new Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment and Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Minister Dr Damodar Rout to reply its 10 questions while narrating the department’s achievements before the media.
Party MlA Pradeep Purohit wanted Rout to clarify as to why the agriculture sector contributes only 15 per cent to the State’s economy when a whopping 70 per cent people are dependent on cultivation. He asked Rout to make people know why the State Government failed to create irrigation facilities for 35 per cent of land despite promises made by the ruling BJD before elections.
Purohit too wanted that the Minister clarifies that water reached only 18 per cent of land during drought in 2015 as informed to the State Assembly by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The Minister should tell people as to why the State Government doesn’t accept a RTI reply that said some farmers of Angul district committed suicide over loan burden and crop loss. He should also make it clear that why the State Government is not providing compensation to families of farmers committing suicide when Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are doing so.
Raising cold storage issue, Purohit want to know why only five cold storages of the Cooperation Department are operating while 13 others defunct now. The Government should accept that huge amounts of Central funds coming for the department are lying unutilized and, due to lack of efforts, Odisha is far behind in prodiction of milk, eggs, onion and potato compared to other States.
Purohit too wanted to why the State Government is not taking help of the Union Government during distress sale of onion. At last, he wanted that Rout give a satisfactory reply to alleged misappropriation of subsidy funds provided for groundnut, soya seeds and tractor procurement.