During a state cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the government launched a scheme called 'Mukhyamantri Krishak Durghatna Kalyan Yojana', that aims to provide financial assistance to the farmer community. The new scheme says that the government will give a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the farmers who die or become handicapped while working in the field in Uttar Pradesh. If they become 60 percent handicapped or more, an amount of Rs 2 lakh will be given.
The cabinet meeting was chaired by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Farmers and their family members in the age group of 18-70 years will be covered under the scheme. The date of implementation is September 14, 2019, as told by cabinet ministers Shrikant Sharma and Siddhartha Nath Singh.
The scheme will also cover those farmers who work in the field of other people and share the crop after it is harvested. The new scheme will also benefit the family members even if they do not get the land transferred in their name. The scheme was earlier known as 'Mukhyamantri Krishak Durghatna Bima Yojana'.
The farmers of Uttar Pradesh had earlier been notified earlier about this new scheme in the queue. The revenue department had been preparing a cabinet proposal related to the revised plan and had started the process of taking consent from the departments quite a few months ago. Around four crore farmers are expected to benefit from this scheme.
In the meeting, CM Yogi also approved the new excise policy for 2020-21 under which the license fee for country-made liquor has been increased by 10 percent, the license fee for beer increased by 15 percent and license fee for foreign liquor hiked by 20 percent.