Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday announced that the land restriction of five acres for availing the incentive under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana would be removed soon.
Addressing a BJP election rally at Chikkodi of Belagavi district on Thursday, Mr. Modi said, “We plan to remove the land restriction of five acres... We will give incentives to all types of farmers.”
He accused the State government of preventing farmers in Karnataka from getting benefits under the scheme by not sending the list of eligible farmers to the Centre. “However, they will not be able to stop this for long. Modi sarkar will return to power on May 23 and I will make sure you will all get the benefits even if the State government does not send us any list,” he said.
Promising a series of steps to help farmers, he said that soon, a pension scheme for farmers who had stopped working would be started and his government would spend ₹25 lakh crore on farmers’ welfare.
He said a national warehouse and cold storage network would be set up to ensure that farms were connected by roads and their yields not spoilt. Processing of farm produce will be a focus area, he said.
The Prime Minister also announced that a new ministry called ‘Jal Shakti Mantralay’ would be set up to exclusively work on expanding the irrigation potential of the nation. “In our first term, we worked on universal electrification. Now, we will focus on irrigation,” he said.
He also said that the government would set up micro-solar grids to help farmers produce, use and sell solar power.
Accusing the Congress of having an agenda of corruption and dynastic politics, he went to narrate his own government’s achievements, including Ayushman Bharat and “reducing inflation to 2-3% from 10%”.
Attack on coalition
Mr. Modi then attacked the Congress-Janata Dal (S) coalition over what he termed their “anti-national stands” on some issues.
“Congress leaders have shown that they will support separatists and terrorists and not our patriotic soldiers. The Congress has promised to scrap AFSPA [Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act] and allow separatists and terrorists to file false cases against soldiers. It has shown that it believes in the evidence produced by Pakistan and not that by our government,” he said.
Mr. Modi also said that the Karnataka Congress president had insulted Hinduism by calling it “opium” and that Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had insulted soldiers by linking their poverty to patriotism. “He [Mr. Kumaraswamy] said that poor people join the army when they fail to make a livelihood. This is a grave insult. Several thousands of young men from Karnataka join the army every year. Does patriotism motivate them or poverty?” he asked.
Mocking the coalition partners, the Prime Minister said that they agreed only on three things — abusing nationalism, backing dynastic politics, and supporting corruption. “They also agree on one more thing: abuse Modi all day long. They don’t agree on anything else,” he said.
