Ryots spent Rythu Bandhu amount judiciously: survey

‘Many farmers purchased seed, fertilizer and farm tools’

Majority of farmers who encashed cheques under the Rythu Bandhu Crop Investment support scheme used the amount judiciously to purchase crop inputs belying apprehensions that the amount may be frittered away on unproductive household consumption, according to a survey.

Under the Rythu Bandhu Crop Investment Support scheme , State Government released ₹4,000 per acre to farmers to purchase crop inputs. Finance Department released ₹6,000 crore to banks for disbursement out of which over ₹4,775 crore has been encashed by the farmers so far.

J-PAL survey

The positive outcome of the scheme, according to the survey done by the J-PAL (Abdul Lateef Jameel Poverty Action Lab), is that the bulk of the cash drawn by farmers has been utilised for procuring fertilizer, seed, pesticides and other inputs, serving the purpose of the scheme. The teams of J-PAL, a US-based global research centre, during the first phase of ‘In person phone survey’ talked to 21,590 farmers across the State in a random sampling.

The 14-day survey concluded on June 14 revealed that over 77% of respondents spent the Rythu Bandhu amount on crop inputs and a whopping 92% of beneficiaries said they were quite satisfied with the scheme.

Field visits

The teams, in the second phase will go on field visits to talk to people not covered by phone and to cross check the impact of the scheme at the ground level.

The first phase of survey concluded that 85 % of farmers received cheques for amounts ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹20,000 for farm land comprising less than an acre to about five acres. About 10% of farmers received cheques for amounts above ₹20,000 to ₹50,000 and only 1% of farmers got amounts more than ₹50,000.

The pattern of spending revealed that a large chunk (28.5 %) of farmers opted to buy seed. About 18% spent the money on fertilizer, 15.4% on new agricultural assets, including farm equipment , 8.6% on pesticides and some used it to engage farm labour. Only 4.4 % of beneficiaries said they utilised it for household consumption and a minuscule percentage for repayment of loans. About 16% said either they did not receive the amount or received only recently.

The survey also revealed that 83.7% of beneficiaries got both cheque and pass book and another 10.6% did not receive either. This is in tandem with the government collected data too. Out of 58,16,042 farmers, excluding 92,000 farmers cultivating lands under the Recognition of Forest Rights Act, government decided to issue pass books to 57.3 lakh farmers. Of that, 50 lakh pattadar passbooks were printed and remaining 7 lakh were put on hold due to various technical and other reasons.