Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday said the interests of farmers are paramount for the state government.

Replying to a question asked during the budget session of the Haryana Assembly today, the CM said as soon as his government took charge in the state in 2014, the compensation amount for crop damage was increased from Rs 10,000 per acre to Rs 12,000 and in this financial year, it has been increased again to Rs 15,000 per acre.

Khattar said an amount of Rs 5,61, 11, 57,000 has been approved as compensation to the farmers for the crops damaged during Kharif 2021.

“In this financial year, we have given a total amount of Rs. 581.17 crore as compensation to the farmers. Apart from this, claims of about Rs 755 Crore have also been approved for the farmers for Kharif 2021 under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, while the premium of Rs 242 Crore has been paid by the farmers,” he said.

Meanwhile, the CM said the historic work done by the state government for ensuring the all-around development of Haryana in the last seven years has strengthened the spirit of Antyodaya.

These works are proving to be a milestone in the direction of poverty eradication, the CM said while replying to the Governor’s Address in the Assembly today.

Khattar said the government is continuously working for the development of the state, the welfare of the poor and scheduled castes, women empowerment, ensuring a bright future for youth, and upliftment of farmers.

The CM said the present government has made such significant efforts so that people should get the benefits of government schemes and programmes while sitting at home.

All the schemes are being linked through Parivar Pehchan Patra. Besides this, poor families are being benefited from schemes and programmes by assisting at their doorstep by organizing Antyodaya Utthan Melas, added Khattar. The CM said that with this new system, reaching out to the common man has become easy and simple and there is a feeling of happiness among the people.

He said the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy Private Limited (CMIE) is a profit-making private company, which is presenting false employment figures in the state. This company presented the unemployment figure of 34.1 percent in its report in December 2021.

“Just a month later, in January 2022, unemployment was shown at 23.4 percent. How come there has been a drop of 11 percent in just one month? If this is considered right, 16 lakh unemployed people got employment in a month,” he said adding “the CMIE report is baseless and a bundle of lies,”.