AP Govt Reaffirms Commitment to Farmers Welfare

Amaravati: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has reiterated the government’s commitment to agriculture and farming and said various initiatives were taken to benefit the farmers. 

In the concluding remarks of the discussion on Agriculture, he told the House on Friday that the Government has fulfilled 100 percent of the promises made to the farmers. Revolutionary steps have been taken for farmers' welfare including schemes like Rythu Bharosa, zero-interest loans, YSR Bima, e-cropping and many more. 

Listing out various initiatives taken up by the government in the last two and half years, the Chief Minister stated that Rs 18,777 crore was credited under YSR Rythu Bharosa, Rs 1674 crore under Sunna Vaddi Panta Runalu and Rs 3788 crore was given through YSR Bima. He said that the previous government had abandoned the farmers and women during their rule and failed to keep up their promises, especially in waiving the crop loans of Rs 87612 crore. The previous TDP government had only cleared Rs 15,000 crore of the total crop loans and left pending arrears of Rs 1674 crore under zero-interest loans and even cancelled the scheme.

He stated that the government has been paying input subsidy for the crop loss within the same season and paid Rs 1070 crore to date. Under nine-hour free power supply to farmers Rs 18,000 crore was spent in addition to Rs 1700 crore for strengthening the feeders. Further, Rs 780 crore is being spent every year on power subsidies for aqua farmers.

As a revolutionary model, 10778 Rythu Bharosa Kendras (RBK) were brought to facilitate farmers from seed to sale along with the provision of banking services through baking correspondents. Like never before e-cropping is being implemented at RBK level, registering details of each crop in a most transparent way by providing digital and physical acknowledgements to farmers. So far 108 lakh acres have been registered and given over 93.22 digital acknowledgements.

The Chief Minister stated that under YSR Yantra Seva Pathakam, the government had established 10,750 community hiring centres at a cost of Rs 2134 crore to provide farming machinery to small and tenant farmers belonging to weaker sections on a rental basis. On Paddy procurement, he said that it is being done at RBK level, where Rs 35,000 crore was spent for procuring paddy, Rs 1800 crore for cotton and procured other crops at an expenditure of Rs 6434 crore. He said that Nadu-Nedu scheme is being implemented in revamping market yards and also proposed to develop godowns, cold storages, primary processing units at village level and secondary processing units in every parliamentary constituency in the next three years. 

Besides these, to support farmers in every step, Market Intervention Fund, CMAPP, Custom Hiring Centres, RBKs, e-cropping, Agriculture Advisory Boards have been set up at the RBK level, Mandal level, District level and State level to assist the farmer community. Also, the government had taken the responsibility in clearing the pending arrears of the previous government which were Rs 960 crore towards paddy procurement, Rs 9000 crore for power bills, Rs 384 crore for seed procurement and paid for all those arrears. He said that a natural disaster fund of Rs 2,000 crore and a price stabilization fund of Rs 3,000 crore were set up.

He said that the government had partnered with Amul to provide better prices for the dairy farmers, and after Amul, all other dairies have also increased the payments. The State government is also paying a good remunerative price for the oil palm farmers about Rs 19,000 per ton from earlier Rs 7,000 per ton.

The Chief Minister stated it was unfortunate that the opposition skipped the discussion of Agriculture and tried to divert the issue by taking my uncle's name.

Earlier, Initiating a short discussion on Agriculture Sector- Welfare of Ryoths, Minister for Agriculture Kurasala Kannababu said the state government has been implementing various flagship programmes for farmers welfare, including the establishment of RBKs, Community Hiring Centres, and welfare schemes like Rythu Bharosa, YSR Bima, Zero-interest loans and many more. The Minister explained in detail the functionalities of RBKs, e-cropping, Agri Advisory Boards and various other initiatives taken in horticulture, dairies, fisheries and animal husbandry. MLAs Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, K Abbaiah Chowdary and B Brahmanaidu had lauded Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for his commitment to the agriculture sector and farmer welfare