With spin doctors claiming Prime Minister’s farmer rally at Bargarh a doom for BJP as Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t announce any special farm package for Odisha peasants, senior BJP leaders are bemused at the play at work and asked the lot to breath a while as the Budget 2016 - 17 is just a few days away.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will outline big-ticket farm and rural development schemes for the country’s farmers in this Budget and how could the Prime Minister spell out before the Budget is presented in the House, wondered BJP general secretary Arun Singh. More so, the Prime Minister cannot announce compartmental packages when the country as a whole is facing disastrous drought, he asserted.
Nonetheless, the Centre has already loosened the purse strings for farmers by amending disaster code, where a crop-loss to tune of 33 per cent is an eligibility for relief - which was not the case for 60-long years, he added, questioning the Congress party’s locus standi on farm package.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the detailed allocation for Pradhan Mantri Sinchai Yojana would be revealed only in the Budget, as he obliquely referred to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Sohela samavesh where the Chief Minister outlined a package mostly of irrigation works post farm-distress, when the fact is he is ruling the State for 15-long years.
“This outrage of Opposition camp shows how distressed they are following the massive attendance at Prime Minister’s farmers rally at Bargarh,” he quipped and added that the Congress has no answer to Pradhan Mantri Fasal Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMFSBY) that was tailor-made to tide the farmers’ suicides in the country. Even, celebrated agro specialists have hailed it as a timely measure when drought-triggered suicides were rocking the country, he reminded. What is significant here is instead of block as one unit for insurance benefit, the PMFSBY has taken a farmer as one unit that guaranteed insurance claim for every farmer who lost his crop. Significant is, if a farmer has not sowed any crop following deficient rain, as happened in western Odisha this Kharif, he could claim 25 per cent of the insured crop amount immediately, which guarantees a farmer’s income, explained BJP spokesperson J Mohanty.
Senior BJP leader Prithviraj Harichandan deplored the BJD, for what he called hoisting a malafide bogey, on alleged cut in drought package by Rs214 crore to Odisha. He said this is a normal practice of relief transfer in Government parleys since the independence. “The Rs214 crore has not been deducted by Centre. Rather, after adjusting the surplus amount in the State Calamity Fund till March 31, 2016, the amount would be released from April onwards,” he explained.