By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Agriculture Minister Arun Sahu and Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari were on Wednesday come under fire from Leader of Opposition in State Assembly, Pradipta Naik over the KALIA scheme. Nayak has criticized the government for such mismatch of information on KALIA.
The Agriculture Minister Sahu has replied to the question of Congress legislator Santosh Singh Saluja on the beneficiaries of KALIA.
While Agriculture Minister had earlier said that 51,50,290 farmers received money under KALIA scheme, Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on Tuesday informed the State Assembly that only 43 lakh farmers have got assistance under the KALIA scheme in the State.
Sahu on Wednesday told the Assembly that 45,965 ineligible beneficiaries were identified so far and steps are being taken by the government to get the money back from them.
The minister said that 1873 such beneficiaries have already returned the money and efforts are on to recover the money from the fake beneficiaries. The Minister said there is no plan to merge the KALIA scheme with Centre’s PM-KISAN Yojana.
The Congress had earlier accused the State government of always maintaining double-standards and alleged that there is no truth in the data provided by the Naveen government.
