East Burdwan, one of the pioneering paddy and potato cultivating districts, has given several crores of rupees as benefits to the farmers under the Bengal government’s flagship Krishak Bandhu scheme. “Our listed farmers, farmland labourers and their families have been provided benefits worth Rs 825.68 crore so far, which is aimed to scale up further,” said Shampa Dhara, sabhadhipati of East Burdwan zilla parishad. She added: “The dependents of 2,905 dead marginal farmers from the district have been facilitated benefits worth Rs 58.10 crore.”
The figures, according to the district agriculture department officials, are the highest benefit value provided to any individual district in the state. The Mamata Banerjee government introduced the Krishak Bandhu scheme to support farmers and the landless labourers of the state during the pre-production stage and it’s meant to provide assured income and insurance benefits to the beneficiaries and their dependents.
Mainly, the farmers possessing one acre or more farmland are given annual Rs 10,000 financial assistance for pre-cultivation arrangements. The marginal farmers having lesser volume of cultivation land are provided a minimum Rs 4,000 assistance, annually.
“We’ve conceived a plan to include the entire farmers of the district under this scheme. A few farmer families have been discarded this time just because their land records weren’t maintained properly,” said Mohammed Ismail, the agricultural karmadhyaksha of the ZP.