The district administration has announced that fishermen – involved in inland fisheries as well as marine fisheries – could avail themselves of credit facilities to meet their short-term requirements under the revised Kisan Credit Card Scheme.
In a press release issued here, Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao said banks had been instructed to extend credit facilities to individual fishermen, fishermen groups, self-help groups and women self-help groups engaged in inland and marine fisheries. The District-Level Technical Committee would fix the scale of finance and the banks would fix the repayment period, he said.
Officials in the Fisheries department said fishermen beneficiaries would soon be given the cards for availing themselves of credit facilities under the scheme. The Kisan Credit Cards would help fishermen engaged in marine fisheries in the district with better cash inflow and prevent them from taking loans from local moneylenders at exorbitant interest rates, the officials said.
In another press release, the Collector said the government had sanctioned 2,575 more farm ponds and allocated ₹25.75 crore for the district for the year 2019-2020. Stating that farm ponds would be established with 100% subsidy, Mr. Rao asked farmers to submit applications.
He said the government, which announced 10,000 farm ponds for the coastal and delta districts at a total cost of ₹100 crore, had earlier sanctioned 3,000 farm ponds for the district and allocated ₹30 crore. The district administration had helped farmers in establishing 486 farm ponds during 2018-19. Farmers could use the water stored in farm ponds to save crops during the terminal stage when they faced shortage of water.
Farmers could save crops in extended areas by practising drip and sprinkler irrigation. Farmers could harvest 63,500 cubic ft of water by digging a 30x30 ft farm pond with a depth of two metres. A pond could be dug at the cost of ₹1 lakh, he said.
