Bhubaneswar:The Odisha chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, Monday launched the Rs 10,000 crore Kalia (Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation) scheme to provide financial assistance to farmers of the state.
Kalia will cover all small and marginal farmers of the state . Under the scheme Rs 10,000 per family at the rate of Rs 5,000 each for five Kharif and Rabi seasons from 2018-19 to 2021-22.
The scheme also cover 10 lakh landless households will be supported with a unit cost of Rs 12,500 to take up activities like small goat rearing, duckery units, fishery kits, mushroom cultivation and bee keeping.
This apart, an annual financial assistance of Rs 10,000 per household will be provided to take care of sustenance of those farmers who may not be able to take up cultivation or avail livelihood options due to old-age, disability, disease or other reasons.
Importantly, life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh and additional personal accident cover of Rs 2 lakh will be provided to both cultivators and landless agricultural labourers covering about 57 lakh households.
Crop loans up to Rs 50,000 will henceforth be interest free. Under KALIA, an amount of Rs 10,180 crore will be spent over a period of three years till 2020-21. The scheme will be reviewed in 2020-21 for further modifications.
Patnaik had an interaction with farmers through video conference from state secretariat soon after launching the programme. The CM has launched the official logo, website – www.kalia.co.in and a helpline number 1800-572- 1122 of the scheme.
State cooperative Ministers Surya Narayan Patro, SMSE minister Prafulla Samal, chief secretary AP Padhi, development commissioner Asit Tripathy were present at the launching event.
