CM Mamata Banerjee: West Bengal to double farmers’ assistance to Rs 10,000 per annum

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced at a cabinet meeting on Thursday that Bengal had decided to double the benefits for farmers under the ‘Krishak Bandhu’ scheme.
This was a part of Trinamool Congress’s poll manifesto and will benefit over 68 lakh farmers in the state.
Under the new plan, farmers with landholding of 1 acre or more would be entitled to receive Rs 10,000 per annum instead of the previous assistance of Rs 5,000 annually.Even the assistance for those holding land below one acre or less and for marginal farmers has been doubled from Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 per year.
Thus, ‘Krishak Bandhu’ will give farmers a better benefit than ‘PM Kisan’, a central government scheme in which farmers get a funding of Rs 6,000 annually, in three equal instalments. However, not all farmers are included in this scheme.
The Bengal government had rolled out the ‘Krishak Bandhu’ scheme in 2018 and around Rs 1,500 crore has been disbursed to farmers till February 2021. Also, there is a death benefit scheme under which a farmer’s family gets a sum of Rs 2 lakh if the farmer dies within 60 years of age.
On May 14, Banerjee had written an open letter to farmers in which she criticised the Centre for its dilly-dallying on ‘PM Kisan’ at a time when it released the first instalment of funds of the scheme to seven lakh farmers of Bengal. The CM had stated the decision to extend benefits of the scheme to eligible farmers in Bengal was a result of her government’s constant fight.