CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -Odisha government on Thursday distributed financial assistance of Rs 869 crores to 41 lakh small and marginalised farmers and 85,000 landless farmers under the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme on the occasion of Nuakhai, the Harvesting festival of Odisha.

Detailed explanation-2: -Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched the Kalia scheme, the state’s own’s farmer welfare scheme in December 2018.

Detailed explanation-3: -The two major mission of the KALIA Scheme is to relieve debt-ridden farmers and to provide financial assistance to agricultural households, landless agricultural laborers, and marginal cultivators in Odisha.

Detailed explanation-4: -It was in 2008 that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik first unveiled the scheme to provide Rs 2 per kg rice to around 60 lakh families in the state. Odisha was not the first, with a few southern states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu already having versions of this programme.