BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has announced a Rs 10,180-crore special, three-year package for both landholding and landless farmers in the state, which chief minister Naveen Patnaik claimed was far more “progressive and inclusive” than the loan waiver the new Congress governments are offering in other states.Listing out the benefits of Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation , or Kalia , which the state cabinet approved on Friday, Patnaik said it covers 92% of cultivators in the state including farmers with and without loans, and landless agricultures labourers.“Kalia is progressive, inclusive, and will make a direct attack on poverty by way of massive investment in this sector and making benefits reach the neediest through direct benefit transfer mode,” he claimed.Under Kalia — which is also a popular name of Lord Jagannath — three million households of small and marginal farmers will get Rs 10,000 (in two kharif and rabi instalments) as financial assistance for five cropping seasons from 2018-19 to 2020-21. The scheme will also offer Rs 12,500 for goat rearing, mushroom cultivation or bee-keeping to one million landless agriculture households, and interest free crop loans of up to Rs 50,000 to farmers.In comparison, the sweeping loan waiver offered by new Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, besides “setting a bad precedent in the decline of fiscal discipline of state”, would also benefit only a limited section, Patnaik claimed. Two-thirds of Odisha’s 32 lakh cultivators have availed loans, and 60% of them have been making regularly repayments, he pointed out.For landless farmers who are too old, physically challenged or too sick to work, the Kalia scheme will offer an assistance of Rs 10,000. Such beneficiaries, estimated at one million, will be identified by gram panchayats.The scheme will also provide life insurance covers of Rs 2 lakh, and personal accident cover of another Rs 2 lakh to both land-owning and landless agricultural labourers over the next three years.The Odisha chief minister, who is looking to return to power for a fifth consecutive term in 2019, has maintained “equi-distance” from both Congress and BJP.Reacting to the results of the recent assembly polls that saw the BJP lose power in predominantly agrarian states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Patnaik described it as a reflection of farmers’ anger at the Centre for ignoring the M S Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations and their burden of loans.Meanwhile, both BJP and Congress have reacted to the five assembly polls by promising to waive off farm loans if voted to power in Odisha in 2019.Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has countered Congress’s sustained criticism attack on its agriculture policies by recalling the Congress rule of 1995-1999 that “reduced growth rate to barely 3%, and nearly bankrupt the treasury”.Dismissing the BJP’s loan waiver promise, Patnaik pointed out that if it wanted to, BJP at the Centre could execute a national loan waiver, like the Congress’ Rs 70,000-crore waiver in 2008. “The BJP talks a lot and does less,” he said. “If you remember their 2014 manifesto, they had promised special category status for Odisha. What happened to that?”