The Andhra Pradesh government has targeted a food grain production of 127 lakh metric tonnes this year against 116.64 lakh tones last year. It presented in to the Assembly on Friday its maiden agriculture budget comprising a plan expenditure of Rs. 6,736 crore and non-plan expenditure of Rs. 6,374 crore.
In his presentation, Agriculture Minister P. Pulla Rao said the huge outlay of Rs. 13,110 crore was made to help the crisis ridden agriculture sector. An amount of Rs. 5,000 crore was also proposed for the crop loan waiver but the balance money would be mobilised based on actual requirement which was being worked out.
Real time monitoring of all 5,434 agricultural feeders was taken up to review the power supply to farmers. All agricultural feeders would be segregated from rural/mixed feeders in a phased manner to provide quality and reliable power to farmers. Replacement of failed distribution transformer would be done within 24 hours at cost to distribution companies.
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A single toll free number was being set up for complaints by farmers. Government would extend high voltage distribution systems to 50,000 agricultural pump sets this year involving an expenditure of Rs. 210 crore for the benefit of tail end farmers.
Mr. Rao said every farmer would be issued a soil health card for supply of micronutrients on subsidy basis after nutrient deficiencies were identified in every village with the aid of soil mapping taken up in association with ICRISAT.
A provision of Rs. 212 crore was made to supply certified seeds on subsidy to farmers. Another Rs. 230 crore was proposed as interest payable to banks for implementation of interest free crop loans up to Rs. 1 lakh and three per cent interest scheme for loans from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 3 lakh. It was proposed to cover 3.6 lakh hectares by direct seeding approach.
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‘Adarsha Rythus’ in the previous government were eliminated and qualified multipurpose extension officers would be recruited to improve extension in agriculture. The government decided to establish DNA fingerprinting and bio-pesticide quality control labs in Andhra Pradesh as the existing ones had gone to Telangana, he added.
Strangely the budget elaborated on measures to strengthen Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University which was renamed by Telagnana government as Prof. Jayashankar Agricultural University, Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University and YSR Horticultural University and strategies for sericulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, cooperation and agriculture credit.
Budget comprises plan expenditure of Rs. 6,736 crore, non-plan expenditure of Rs. 6,374 crore
An outlay of Rs. 13,110 crore made to bail out crisis-ridden agriculture sector