‘Rs 300 per quintal for paddy’: Tejashwi Yadav woos farmers

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday announced that farmers would be given Rs 300 per quintal of paddy and Rs 400 for wheat as a bonus over MSP, if the INDIA bloc comes to power in Bihar.

Addressing a press conference here, Yadav, the chief ministerial candidate of the INDIA bloc, also said heads of all Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and Primary Marketing Cooperative Societies (Vyapar Mandals) will also be given the “status of people’s representatives” in the state, if the opposition alliance wrests power.

There are more than 8,400 PACS in the state, he said.

Besides, farmers in Bihar will be provided free electricity for irrigation purposes, if the INDIA bloc wrests power in the state, he said, claiming that currently the government “charges 55 paisa per unit from farmers for the electricity used in agricultural activities”.

The announcements come two days ahead of the first phase of voting in the state on November 6. “All farmers will be given Rs 300 per quintal of paddy and Rs 400 for wheat as a bonus over the minimum support price (MSP), if the INDIA bloc comes to power in the state,” Yadav said.

The PACS and Vyapar Mandals are the agencies for food procurement in the rural areas. PACS are the ground-level cooperative credit institutions that provide short-term and medium-term agricultural loans to farmers for various agricultural and farming activities.

“We are also planning to give honorarium to managers of registered 8,400 Vyapar Mandals and PACS in the state, if we form the government,” Yadav said.

“We have already promised that we will transfer Rs 2,500 each into the bank accounts of women every month under the ‘Mai-Bahan’ scheme. Now we have decided that Rs 30,000 will be transferred in advance (of the entire year) to the accounts of all women in the state under the ‘Mai-Bahan scheme’ on the occasion of ‘Makar Sankranti’ on January 14 next year,” the RJD leader said.

The 243-member Bihar Assembly will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and November 11.