Amaravati: The newly appointed Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy yesterday announced several crucial decisions related to the agricultural sector in the State and scrapped the Annadata Sukhibhava scheme launched by Naidu’s TDP government.
According to media reports, the CM held a high-level review meeting on agriculture yesterday. Chief Ministers Principal Advisor Ajeya Kallam, Special Chief Secretary P V Ramesh, Agriculture Advisor T Vijay Kumar, Principal Secretary B Rajasekhar and several other senior officials attended the meeting. The government has decided to introduce Rythu Bharosa‘ scheme and a Rs 3,000 crore Market Stabilisation Fund.
In case of a farmer’s death, Rs 7 lakh per head will be paid as ex-gratia under the new YSR Bima insurance scheme.
During the meeting it was also decided to scrap the Annadata Sukhibhava scheme introduced by former CM Chandrababu Naidu and instead bring in Rythu Bharosa scheme.
Farmers in the State will be given an annual financial aide of Rs 12,500 to meet the input costs under the scheme and it will be implemented from 15 October. Earlier it was planned to be launched in May 2020. Based on media reports, the new scheme would cost the exchequer Rs 13,125 crore per annum.
Under the scheme introduced by the Naidu government, it was said sops for farmers by integrating a state programme with the Centre’s, thus enabling each farmer to get Rs 10,000 annually in two instalments. Annadata Sukhibhava scheme under which Rs 4,000 per annum will be disbursed to farmers in addition to Rs 6,000 announced by the Centre in its interim budget on 1 February was also announced then.
On the other hand, Jagan Mohan also announced the AP government would pay crop insurance premium for all farmers henceforth. He also asked officials to set up a Market Stabilisation Fund with a corpus of Rs 3,000 crore to ensure farmers secured minimum support price on their produce, shielding them from price fluctuations.
It is reported that the proposed Village Secretariats will become functional from 2 October and they would focus specially on the needs of farmers and also deliver other government welfare schemes to people.
Jagan said the village volunteers will act as the face of the government and vehicles that deliver the welfare schemes directly to the people.
Jagan also said an Agriculture Mission would be established with experts to study various aspects related to agriculture and allied sectors. He asked the civil supplies department to work in close coordination with the agriculture department for better results.