Gaurav Gogoi, a Congress leader, called on Union minister Piyush Goyal to investigate the facts surrounding the granting of a government subsidy to a project owned by the wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
This comes after The Crosscurrent, a digital media outlet from Guwahati, reported that over 50 bigha (17 acres) of agricultural land at Darigaji village in Kaliabor in Nagaon district had been reclassified as industrial land shortly after it was bought by a firm owned by Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, the chairman and managing director of Pride East Entertainments.
In a letter to Goyal, Gogoi noted that the Ministry of Food Processing had allocated Rs 10 crore to Pride East Entertainments, the promoter of which is Riniki Bhuyan Sharma, as part of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) and Scheme for Creation of Infrastructure for Agro Clusters.
He also highlighted that the same information is available on the ministry’s website. Gogoi expressed his concern that the Chief Minister had denied receiving or claiming any amount from the Government of India, and asked for Goyal’s intervention to bring the facts to light.
He suggested that established media channels seeking to venture into a new business should seek credit from the finance sector, and that government grants should be given to genuine and needy beneficiaries who can use taxpayers’ money properly. The PM Kisan Sampada Yojana is a comprehensive package that seeks to create modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet.
