Livelihood training for KALIA beneficiaries

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government will organise master trainers’ programme in order to impart quality training to propagate livelihood activities among landless agricultural workers, who will get financial assistance under Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme.

It will be organized at Krushi Bhawan on February 14.

Eminent experts from various fields and Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology will impart training to the participants at the State-level programme.

Assistance to cover all landless agriculture workers across the State is indeed a historic step as it has been taken up for the first time in India.

The master trainers after getting the training will go to their respective districts and impart the block and Gram Panchayat-level training for which adequate information booklets would be provided by the Agriculture Department and Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Department in coordination with Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department.

The Gram Panchayat-level orientation will be done before March 31 and block-Level training will be done by May 15 to August 31.

Under the KALIA Scheme, a landless agriculture worker will be eligible to get Rs 12,500 in three installments for livelihood activities like goatery, backyard poultry, poultry, apiculture, mushroom cultivation, duckery and fishing kit.

It is learnt that the three installments would be provided in phases of Rs 5,000, Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,500 respectively.

The first installment of Rs 5,000 through direct benefit transfer under KALIA Scheme for landless agriculture workers will be initiated on February 15 by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at a convention in Kendrapara. The second and third installments would likely to be released subsequently.

While under goatery one landless agriculture worker would get assistance to purchase three goats, for backyard poultry a beneficiary will get the assistance to purchase 60 chicks (28-days-old) and feeds for eight weeks, for duckery 100 ducklings (28-days-old) and feeds for eight weeks, for poultry 80 chicks (28- days-old) and feeds for six weeks, fishing kit consisting a net, ice box, life jacket and solar lantern.

Similarly, for an apiary project a landless agriculture worker will get two apiary boxes, two colonies of bees and tools for fumigation and extraction of honey. In case of mushroom cultivation, the beneficiary will get assistance to make 50 beds to cultivate mushrooms at his/her facility.

While the second installment of Rs 3,000 will be given after the beneficiary undergoes GP-level orientation and block-level training, the last installment of Rs 4,500 would be released once the Gram Panchayat Nodal Officers (GPNOs) verifies the progress of the livelihood projects and the beneficiary having proper asset under the assistance.

The GPNOs will post the geo-tagged images of the projects of the beneficiaries at appropriate sites.