Chief minister Naveen Patnaik attends the Bhumi puja and Akhimuthi anukula in Kendrapara. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar/Kendrapara, May 13: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today announced a special package for farmers on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya festival, which marks the beginning of cultivation.

Donning the role of a farmer, Naveen today sowed paddy seeds at Barimula in Kendrapara district. The state government has been observing Akshay Tritiya as Krushak Divas (farmers’ day).

Naveen today announced the Biju Krushak Kalyan Yojana for the farmers that will ensure each peasant’s family health insurance coverage of up to Rs 1 lakh. An estimated 2.5 crore people belonging to 50 lakh families will avail themselves of the benefits under the scheme. A sum of Rs 100 crore has been allocated in this year’s budget for the purpose.

“This scheme will help extending social security to the farmers,” he said, announcing that the new agricultural policy would come into force from today.

Stating that the BJD was committed to the development of agriculture and farmers, Naveen said his government had presented a separate budget for the farming sector this year. Odisha was second only to Karnataka in this regard. Apart from providing subsidy for establishment of food-processing units, horticulture, farm mechanisation and irrigation, the government will sanction of agriculture loan at 2 per cent interest to the farmers. The government decided to sanction an agriculture loan to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore for the kharif and rabi crops this year.

The chief minister also laid the foundation stone of Barakanda-Akhadasahi creek irrigation project in the Mahakalpada Assembly constituency.

The new agriculture policy will have a retrospective effect from April 1 this year. The last agriculture policy was formulated in 2008.

“The new policy has been prepared with greater focus on the economic well being of farmers and rural poor, rather than just on production and growth,” according to the government resolution notified on April 22. The government admitted the decline in agricultural growth and profitability in the sector.

Earlier, the state government had announced free cell phones to the farmers. “Once the pilot scheme is successful, it will be extended to other areas. In the first phase, nearly 20,000 farmers, registered under the regulated market societies, will be provided mobile phones,” state’s finance minister Prasanna Acharya said. However, several farmers, who had turned up at the venue where the chief minister made the announcement to air their grievances on ineffective irrigation network, were left disappointed as they were stopped from going close to Naveen by armed security personnel.

“The meeting was meant for the farmers. But, local BJD men had taken control of the venue. The place had turned into a police cantonment. We are not getting irrigation water as our crop fields are located at the tail-end of the canal network. Thus, the crop yield has come down,” said Adikanda Rout, a local farmer.