April 24, 2015
WB CM writes to Centre to help potato farmers of the state
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written to finance minister Arun Jaitley recently to rescue the potato farmers of the state suffering due to a bumper crop this season.
Listing the number of steps already taken by the Bengal government to ensure that the record 1 lakh, 20 thousand metric tonne yield fetches a fair price, WB CM has urged the Centre to take some specific measures that the Centre can take to bail out the farmers.
Concrete steps by State
In her second letter to Jaitley, after one she wrote on April 9, CM said that the state government has taken steps like, directly procuring potato from farmers for supplying to ICDS and midday meal beneficiaries, providing transport subsidy for inter-state movement of potato by the railways, subsidy for exporting potato from the Calcutta port.
In the letter, the CM has asked the finance minister to waive loans taken by potato farmers and also allow fresh loans for the kharif crop.
Letter against curtailing rural dev funds
WB CM has also written a letter to the Centre, opposing any move to reduce funds already sanctioned for rural development projects.
“Recently, the Union government has given us a letter informing about curtailment of funds for a number of rural development schemes, like the Backward Regions Grants Fund and the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhijan fund meant for strengthening panchayat infrastructure,” Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee said. “I shall visit Delhi to talk to the Centre on this issue.”
