AIADMK, BJP regimes “double engines” to drive growth: Goyal

Chennai: Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday likened the governments led by his party at the Centre and the one steered by the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu to "double engines" that would ensure progress with double the speed.

Concurring with Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's remark that people will gain if the Centre and State worked with synergy, he said it will ensure double progress.
Participating in the Prime Minister's 'Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana' launch in Tamil Nadu, he said, "when the Central and State governments work together as friends, you can see double progress and double speed of progress."

"You all know that in a train if you put a double engine the train goes faster."
Stating that Tamil Nadu people "are very smart," he asked "Am I right?" to which the audience replied "yes."

The Union Minister said "(do) you want a double engine to work for Tamil Nadu?", to which the gathering again said yes.

He said: "With your blessings, of farmers, the people of Tamil Nadu and Amma (late Jayalalithaa) we will go to work for a better future for our people."

Chief Minister K Palaniswami hailed the scheme, saying it would benefit more than 22 lakh small farmers of Tamil Nadu and added that Rs 277 crore has been set apart for it so far, following the Central funding for the rollout of the first instalment of Rs 2,000 to them.

Panneerselvam, who spoke ahead of Goyal, said that when the Central and State governments work in synergy, conceive and effectively implement well-thought-out programmes, the ultimate beneficiaries are the people.

The Deputy Chief Minister said the Information Technology infrastructure of the state enabled the smooth roll out of the kisan plan, a "major path-breaking scheme."

"The technology-enabled implementation mechanism ensures that identification of beneficiaries is error-free, delivery is speedy and there are no leakages," Panneerselvam, who also holds the finance portfolio, said.

Goyal dubbed the Kisan payout scheme as the largest ever plan launched since Independence, under which every small farmer would get Rs 2,000 every four months.

Citing the Union budget's increased allocation of Rs 1,41,000 crore for agriculture and allied sectors, he said this was nearly five times more than what it was when Congress and other earlier governments had allocated before 2014.

The Union Minister said the people and farmers of Tamil Nadu are "grateful" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the scheme, which would benefit 12 crore farmers all over the country and more than 60 lakh farmers in the state.

The payout of Rs 2,000 started on Sunday and "I must compliment the Tamil Nadu government, which already sent the first list of more than 20 lakh names (of beneficiaries) to Delhi."

Goyal said district panchayat level officers would prepare a list of names that may have been left out. He appealed to small farmers who did not have bank accounts and Aadhaar cards to get these and register themselves with the district panchayats to get benefits from the scheme.

"This list will be put up in the gram panchayat and after that if any names are left out, still it can be added."

He also appealed to the beneficiaries to lodge a complaint if any wrong names got on to the list so that only the real beneficiaries received the dole.  

"The scheme is not a favour we are doing to the farmers. It is a mark of respect people of India gave to farmers who give foodgrains and are making India self-sufficient so that nobody has to go hungry."

Initiatives like the PM Fasal Bima Yojana have also been very beneficial for Tamil Nadu in a "big way," he said and pointed out that even in the Kisan Credit Card plan, the borrowing ceiling was increased to Rs 1,60,000 from Rs 1,00,000.

The Minister, who earlier participated in another function on the Kisan scheme in the city, said "this money (Kisan yojana) cannot be adjusted against the loan account. it will be money available to farmers in their account."

There was no other scheme with Rs 75,000 crore as allocation, he said.

The government was implementing the farm scientist M S Swaminathan panel's recommendations and the Minimum Support Price would be at least one and a half times the cost of production for all 22 major foodgrains produced in India. He said there was no shortage of fertilisers anywhere in the country.