By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: The Biju Janata Dal staged a protest meeting in front of the Raj Bhawan here demanding the Centre to procure all food grains from Odisha on Tuesday. The Party will carry out protest meeting across the State till February 16.
Later a BJD delegation led by Party’s Organisational general secretary and MLA Pranab Prakash Das met Odisha Governor Prof Ganeshi Lal, and handed over a memorandum which was addressed to President Droupadi Mumru over reducing the allocation on paddy procurement and closure of PMGKAY programme in the State.
MLAs Arun Sahoo, Rudra Maharathy, Devi Ranjan Tripathy, Byamokesh Ray, Sushant Rout, Ananta Jena, Pranab Balabantray and others were among those in the delegation.
With cut in funds by Rs 20,000 crore in Centre’s annual Budget for the year 2023-24, lakhs of farmers especially in western Odisha will be severely affected in the state, the BJD said.
BJD alleged that Centre has closed Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). Under this programme, Centre was providing additional 5kg free rice per person under the PMGKAY programme apart from 5kg rice under National Food Security Act (NFSA). With closure of the scheme, the paddy procurement will drastically go down and the farmers will be deprived of getting the MSP.
On Wednesday, mass protests will be staged by the party at each Gram Panchayat headquarters in all 30 districts. On February 16, the BJD protestors will demonstrate in each collectorate and block office.
