Sitharaman extends cash benefit to Assam tea workers
Guwahati, Feb 06: Ahead of the assembly polls in Assam, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday distributed Rs 3,000 each to 7.47 lakh tea garden workers in the state, totalling Rs 224 crore.
The Union finance minister was in the city to participate in the programme to offer financial assitance to tea workers under the third tranche of the Assam Chah Bagicha Dhan Puraskar Mela Scheme.
Before 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Narendra Modi ji had wished to work for the upliftment of tea garden workers and accordingly several schemes were launched after the NDA came to power, the Union minister said.
As part of the third tranche of the flagship scheme, an additional amount of Rs 3,000 each will be credited to the bank accounts of 7,46,667 workers. Each tea worker had earlier received Rs 5,000 in two phases.
Assam govt recruits 29,701 teachers ahead of Assembly election
The incentive was made through direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode to 6,33,411 bank accounts of tea gardens in 2017-18 and 7,15,979 accounts in 2018-19 across 752 tea gardens.
Sitharaman
said,
all
middlemen
have
been
eliminated
with
introduction
of
the
DBT
mode
in
various
schemes
and
the
Centre
will
continue
to
support
tea
gardens
in
Assam
in
future.
"PM
Modi
favoured
using
technology
for
the
benefit
of
people
while
implementing
the
schemes
and
so
the
concept
of
DBT
was
introduced.
Due
to
this,
middlemen
were
totally
eliminated
and
the
benefits
reached
directly
to
the
beneficiaries,"
she
said.
Sitharaman said that the Union budget for 2021-22 has allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the welfare of women and children of tea gardens in Assam and West Bengal as per the request of the BJP-led government in the northeastern state.
"After bank accounts were opened for tea garden labourers, some issues cropped up. But when I instructed the bankers in February last year to correct the anomalies they worked tirelessly, even during the COVID-19 crisis, and everything is on track now," she said.
Speaking on the occasion, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Rs 224 crore will be spent on transferring the third tranche of the scheme to the beneficiaries.
"We spent Rs 158 crore in the first year and it increased to Rs 202 crore during the second year. The scheme won't stop here at Rs 3,000 each as we have already begun the process to send such an amount every month," he added.
Elections to the 126-member Assam Assembly are due in March-April this year.