New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh government Sunday started the disbursement of a nearly Rs. 1,895 crore first instalment for input subsidy to farmers in the current financial year, under the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan NYAY Yojana. While the state had set a total subsidy of Rs 6800 as input subsidy for farmers in its budget for the 2023-24 financial year, presented in March, according to a statement released by the government last week, the total outlay for the year is likely to touch Rs. 8,000 crore.
The disbursement in the first instalment is to be followed by three more in August, October and March (2024), totaling Rs. 6000 crore.
The initiation of payments in online mode Sunday, took place at the Chhattisgarh government’s ‘Bharose Ka Sammelan [gathering of trust]’, organised at Sankara Patan in Chhattisgarh’s Durg district. Sunday’s event coincided with the commemoration of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s death anniversary on 21 May.
An estimated “24.5 lakh farmers in the state will receive the first instalment of Rs. 1,895 crore under the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan NYAY Yojana. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will transfer the amount to the bank accounts of farmers during the Bharose ka Sammelan,” the Chhattisgarh government had said in a statement last week.
Launched on 21 May, 2019 by the Baghel-led Congress government in the state, the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana aims to encourage farmers to achieve better crop production and crop diversification and to increase the land under cultivation in the state.
According to state estimates, a total input subsidy of Rs. 18,208 crore has been paid under the scheme till date.
Also read: Artisanal soaps to lavender tea, Chhattisgarh’s gobar revolution is helping rural women
Aid to farmers
When launched, the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan NYAY Yojana, envisioned the distribution of input subsidy of Rs. 9,000 per acre to farmers who cultivated Kharif crops, to decrease farm costs and encourage crop diversification.
Rabi and Kharif are the two cultivation seasons in India, with Kharif typically covering the months of June to November. Also called monsoon crops, rice, maize, millets, oilseeds such as groundnut, soybean, niger, and sunflower and some varieties of pulses, are examples of Kharif crops.
In its first year, 18 lakh paddy-cultivating farmers received an input subsidy of over Rs. 5,627 crore under the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan NYAY Yojana, at the rate of Rs. 10,000 per acre of land, according to state government data. The input subsidy under the scheme increased to over Rs 5,553 crore for 20 lakh farmers in 2020.
“Under the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan NYAY Yojana, agriculture in the state has flourished considerably because of the input subsidy paid to the farmers of Chhattisgarh. People who had given up farming are again considering pursuing it,” said the government in its statement last week.
In the 2020-21 financial year, Chhattisgarh ranked second across India in terms of overall paddy procurement — with 92 lakh metric tonnes (LMT), only behind Punjab’s 202.82 LMT — and was fourth among contributors to the central pool of rice through the Food Corporation of India (FCI), sending 39.76 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of the grain, behind only Punjab’s 135 LMT, Uttar Pradesh’s 44.78 LMT and Odisha’s 42.22 LMT.
According to a Business Standard report published in April, the Chhattisgarh govt. placed 2,844,000 metric tonnes of rice in the central reserve for the kharif marketing season in the 2022-23 financial year, making it the second largest contributor of rice, after Punjab.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
Also read: Bhupesh Baghel’s Kaushalya Mandir is Chattisgarh’s own Ram trail. BJP is ‘uncomfortable’