BHUBANESWAR: In the interim budget before the state goes to polls, the Naveen Patnaik government proceeded on expected lines, wooing farmers by allotting the major chunk of the budget estimates to schemes that help them. However, farmers’ organizations expressed unhappiness with the government.The BJD government’s flagship Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (Kalia) scheme got the lion’s share of the estimates; the party hopes to ride on its success with the scheme to retain power for the fifth successive term.“I am happy that adequate provisions have been made for Kalia and the Kalia scholarship (meant for children of the beneficiaries) schemes. This is a pro-farmer budget,” the chief minister said after the presentation of the interim budget in the assembly on Thursday.In the budget allocation for the financial year 2019-20, the government made an estimate of Rs 4,461 crore for Kalia, which has fetched Naveen praise from across the country. The government also announced Rs 800 crore as subsidy on interest of farm loans.“The scheme shows the commitment of the state government towards providing financial support to more than 50 lakh farmers’ families. The scheme also covers sharecroppers and agricultural landless labourers, covering almost 92 per cent of families dependent on agriculture ,” finance minister Shashibhushan Behera said in his budget speech.Akshay Kumar, leader of the farmers’ outfit Navnirman Krushaka Sangatha, which tried to stage a demonstration in the city on Wednesday, was not happy with the interim budget. “It is really shameful that the government is calling the budget pro-farmer. Whatever the state government is claiming to do for farmers is only in words. In reality, 70 per cent of the funds are being looted by corrupt officials. If the government can prevent migration of farmers to other states and give 50 per cent of the total budgetary allocations to farming, only then will we call it a pro-farmer budget,” he said.The farmers’ organisations also alleged that the government was making superficial provisions for them without addressing the root cause of farm distress.For the development of the agriculture sector, the state government allocated Rs 1,777crore to the Parvati Giri mega lift irrigation project, Rs 1,465 crore to water sector infrastructure development and Rs 357 crore to construction of check dams. In the budget, there was a provision of Rs 260 crore as corpus fund for seeds and fertilisers and Rs 295 crore for undertaking farm mechanisation programme.Reacting to the interim budget, Saroj Mohanty, another farmers’ leader, said, “The government has never tried to solve the problems of farmers by providing remunerative price for their products, creating market linkages and setting up cold storage facilities. It is trying to buy our silence.”It must be mentioned that farmers make up 60 per cent of the state’s population.

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