State Government’s announcement that it would encourage poly-house cultivation by giving substantial subsidy has spurred interest among farmers for taking up modern farming.
But, the government which is yet to issue a notification on poly-house cultivation, has framed guidelines for the subsidy. Initially, the government said that farmers residing within 100 km from the State capital would be eligible for the subsidy for vegetable cultivation under poly-house.
A farmer from Kanagal mandal P.Shiva Reddy said parts of mandal is less than 100 km from Hyderabad while a few other villages are located 125 km from the State capital . There is no clarity on whether the distance should be calculated from the city outskirts or Public Garden in Hyderabad. It was pointed out that if Public Gardens was taken as the cut off point for calculation of distance, many mandals would be left out.
It may be mentioned here that in the maiden Telangana budget, the State government had allocated Rs. 250 crore with Rs. 25 lakh subsidy on each acre of vegetable cultivation under poly-house, out of 35 lakhs to be invested. Since Nalgonda is located very close to Hyderabad as many as 200 enthusiastic farmers evinced interest and knocked the doors of the horticulture office.
Officials were not accepting the applications since they had not received guidelines. However, the officials are registering the details of all those farmers who have approached them .
Assistant Director, Horticulture, T. Nagaraju said that the farmers from Nalgonda are eager to take up poly house cultivation. “The government must list out the mandals that are eligible for subsidy, the officer added.
