Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Prattipati Pulla Rao on Friday unveiled Agriculture Budget for 2015-16 with an outlay of Rs.14,184.03 crore with focus on making agriculture and allied sectors profitable and sustainable.
Presenting the Agriculture Budget for the second consecutive year, he said that Rs.4,513.45 crore was allocated under plan and Rs.9,670.58 crore under non-plan. He said that the primary sector comprising agriculture and allied sectors contributed 27.84 per cent of the total GSDP of the State during 2013-14.
He said that Government intends to increase the contribution substantially this year. With ICRISAT as a knowledge partner, a detailed action plan was prepared to overcome constraints, enhance productivity levels in agriculture and allied sectors and increase income of the farmer.
Double digit growth
Declaring that it is targeted to achieve double digit growth in agriculture in GSDP, Mr. Pulla Rao said that paddy, maize, groundnut in agriculture; chillies, banana, mango in horticulture; milk, meat and egg in livestock; marine and inland fish under fisheries sectors were some of the key identified growth engines.
Mentioning various measures from adopting public-private partnership to using satellite imagery for analysing crop conditions, he outlined the Government’s strategy for development of horticulture, sericulture, animal husbandry and fisheries.
A.P. tops in fish production
Referring to Fisheries, he said that AP ranked first in fisheries and fish production was projected to be 21.62 lakh tonnes, valued at Rs.32,058 crore. He said that the Government was keen on making Vijayawada the aquaculture capital of the world.
He said that the Government’s debt redemption initiative brought smiles on faces of millions of farmers who were in debt trap and paved the way for sustainable agriculture. An amount of Rs.4,689 crore was credited in favour of 40.50 lakh farmers belonging to 23.22 lakh families in the first phase and accounts of another 42.16 lakh farmers were under process for the second phase.
The major allocations include Rs.3,000 crore for power subsidy to farmers and Rs.2717 crore for agriculture and allied sectors under MNREGA.
