The Andhra Pradesh government will implement the farm investment support scheme for farmers, YSR Rythu Bharosa, on October 15, 2019, for the rabi season, across the state. As the new scheme will run along with the Centre’s PM-Kisan scheme, the direct benefit transfer (DBT) to benefiiciaries, including tenant farmers, will be Rs 12,500 per family per annum. The idea is to support the cultivators for sourcing quality inputs and services for higher crop productivity.
“The benefit of the scheme shall be provided to all the landholder farmer families who collectively own cultivable lands irrespective of size of land holdings.
The benefit will include Rs 6,500 under YSR Rythu Bharosa and Rs 6,000 under PM-Kisan per family,” a senior official from the agriculture department said. Also, SC, ST, BC and minority landless tenant farmer families will get assistance.
“The farm investment support component of the YSR Rythu Bharosa scheme will benefit 64.06 lakh farmers, which includes 15.36 lakh tenant farmers with a proposed outlay of Rs 8,750 crore,” chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had mentioned during the budget allocation.
To decrease the cost of credit to farmers, the government will be implementing interest-free loan for farmers, including to the tenants, with a token provision of Rs 100 crore as the need for payment will arise in the first quarter of the next financial year,” Reddy had said earlier.
The guidelines for Rythu Bharosa, which is one of the ‘Navratnas’, nine election promises made by the CM, mentions that the farmers cultivating acquired lands, for which compensation was not paid, are eligible for benefit under the scheme. In case of joint holding, the benefit will be transferred to the bank account of the person within the family with highest quantum of landholding. It also said that the income support is given irrespective of the size of land holding by the landowner families. The minimum area to be taken on lease by a single individual landless tenant is one acre if it is for agriculture, horticulture or sericulture. If the tenant farmer grows vegetables, flowers and fodder crops, the minimum area is half-acre, and for betel vines, it is 0.1 acre.
