Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will roll out the enhanced financial assistance of Rs 10,000 per year to a farmer under Krishak Bandhu scheme on Thursday.
The benefits will be directly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. There are already 62 lakh beneficiaries under the scheme. The number is expected to go up to at least 68 lakh with continuation of the enrollment of farmers under the scheme.
The Chief Minister will be heading the programme that will take place at 3 pm from Nabanna. It would take maximum two days to transfer the benefits in the account of all the beneficiaries.
Initially, after it was introduced in January 2019, each farmer had one acre or more land used to get Rs 4,000 per year. Later while announcing the Budget for 2021-22, the state Finance
minister had announced of increasing it to Rs 6,000 bringing it at par to that of the Centre's PM-Kisan.
While releasing the election manifesto, Banerjee announced that the amount will be increased to Rs 10,000 after formation of her government for the third consecutive term.
The cabinet gave a nod in this connection on June 10 and subsequently all preparations were made to roll out the same at the earliest.
Following the revision in the rates, the farmers with one or more land will get Rs 10,000 per year in two installments while those with less than 1 acre will receive Rs 4,000, which was Rs 2,000 earlier. The death benefit under the scheme will remain constant to Rs 2 lakh.
When the Chief Minister is fulfilling her pre-poll assurances, Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to keep his pre-poll assurance of releasing the arrears amount of Rs 18,000 to each beneficiary soon after the elections under the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN)
scheme.