GOVERNMENT OF TELANGANA
ABSTRACT
Agriculture& Cooperation Department – Guidelines for Implementation of Agriculture Investment Support Scheme (“Rythu Bandhu”) in Telangana State – Orders – Issued.
- From the Commissioner of Agriculture, Hyderabad Lr.No.R.S.S.C/42/2018,Dated 05-02-2018.
- From the General Manager and Convener SLBC Letter No. GBU/ HYD/214, Dt: 23/03/2018.
- From the General Manager and Convener SLBC Letter No. GBU/ HYD/216, Dt: 29/03/2018.
ORDER:
Agricultural development has a strong bearing on the lives of large population dependent on agriculture with low income. Telangana State is a predominantly rainfed state and it had one of the highest rate of farmer indebtedness in the country. Hence Debt waiver of Rs. 16124.38 crores was implemented with effect from September 2014, which gave huge relief to about 35 Lakh farmers in the state. Government significantly invested in power sector and is now providing 24 hours free quality power to all the farmers w.e.f. 1 st January’ 2018. This State embarked on a massive program of constructing new irrigation projects (Major & Medium) and completingthe on-going projects, in addition to Kakatiya Mission aiming at revival of all the MItanks in the state. Government also laid lot of emphasis on Micro Irrigation, Farm Mechanization, Creation of Additional storage space and Strengthening of Extension Machinery.
Further, Government of Telangana is contemplating for providing food security as well as income security to the farmers. Farmers’ income in the state has been understress in view of the ever growing input costs, unpredictable prices and rising familyexpenses, especially on health and education. Therefore the daunting task beforeGovernment o Telangana is to provide a sense of income security to the farmers.
2) KEY FEATURES OF THE SCHEME:
Agriculture in Telangana is characterized by stagnation, low productivity,
frequent occurrence of droughts and low levels of public and private investments.
Therefore Investment is the surest way to enhance agricultural productivity and also
incomes of the farmers, besides breaking the vicious cycle of rural indebtedness. In
order to ensure that the farmers do not fall again in to the debt trap, a new scheme
called “Agriculture Investment Support Scheme” (“Rythu Bandhu”) is proposed to be
implemented from the year 2018-19 onwards, from the beginning of the Kharif
(Vanakalam) season itself, to take care of the initial investment needs of every farmer.
A budget of Rs 12000 crores has already been provided for the financial year 2018-
19 and it includes Service charges payable to Banks and also administrative
expenditure for implementing the scheme.
The broad details of the scheme are as follows:
Relieving the farmers from debt burden and not allowing them to fall in the
debt trap again, this new scheme is proposed for providing investment support to
Agriculture and Horticulture crops by way of a grant @ Rs. 4000/- per acre per farmer
each season for purchase of inputs like (1)Seeds, (2)Fertilizers, (3)Pesticides,
(4)towards Labour and other Investments in the field operations of farmers’ choice for
the crop season.
3) The Government held widespread consultations and a major decision was taken
to take up farmer-wise survey of Agriculture Lands, entitled ‘the Land Records
Updation Program’ (LRUP) and accordingly the Revenue Department has completed
the task of updation and purification of land records and now has an updated data base
of all agricultural lands.
The updated and purified land record data base in the form of LRUP will form
the basis for implementing the Investment Support Scheme (“Rythu Bandhu
Scheme”). The LRUP data of Agricultural Lands has been finalized by the CCLA in
March’ 2018 and it will be adopted by the Commissioner & Director of Agriculture
for working out the budget requirement and implementing the Investment Support
Scheme.
4) A Cabinet Sub-committee was constituted on Investment Support Scheme to
recommend detailed operational guidelines for implementation of the scheme with the
following Ministers.
5) The Cabinet Sub-committee, based on the options exercised by majority of the
farmers in the State, recommended that the amount may be disbursed in the form of
cheques to enable the farmers to deposit the same in the Banks of their choice. The
cheques will be handed over to the farmers in the villages in the Grama Sabhas during
the months of April and May, 2018. It was decided to issue “Order Cheques” to farmers
payable at par, in all the branches of the issuing Bank in the State. These Cheques will
neither be account payee cheques nor bearer cheques but Order Cheques. It shall be
the obligation of the Bank to confirm the identity of the farmer before the actual
disbursement of the amounts to him. These cheques will be payable at par in all the
branches of the designated bank in the State.
6) The SLBC, Telangana after consultations with all the Banks has furnished a
Mandal-wise list of Banks. For every mandal in the state, a designated Bank has been
identified. The Order Cheques will be payable at any of the branches of the designated
Bank, while the farmer would have freedom to encash the Cheques in any branch of
that Bank in the State of Telangana payable at par.
7) IMPLEMENTATION:
Based on the updation and purification of land records, taken up by the Revenue
Department, actual number of farmers and extent owned by them in acres is
determined. The amount of grant under the Rythu Bandu Scheme is Rs. 4000/per acre
per crop season. This implies that if the farmer cultivates the land during Rabi also,
he is eligible to receive another grant of Rs. 4000/- per acre of cropped area. The
scheme will be implemented by the Agriculture department under the leadership of
concerned District Collectors from the year 2018-19, with the assistance and
coordination of Revenue Department.
The above amount will be distributed through the “Order Cheques” before
beginning of the Kharif season. Steps will be taken to avoid crowding of farmers at
Bank Branch Level and also to facilitate smooth distribution of cheques in the Grama
Sabhas. The Cheques will be distributed during April and May months till the entire
task of distribution of Cheques is completed under the close supervision of District
Collectors, JCs, DAOs and RDOs concerned.
8) PORTAL FOR SCHEME IMPLEMENTATION (Management Information
system)
The National Informatics Center (NIC), Telangana State is designated as nodal
agency for development of MIS portal for Rythu Bandhu Scheme. The State
Informatics Officer, NIC and Convener, SLBC should ensure seamless flow of data
between their respective softwares (NIC and Banks) to enable the implementing
officers for retrieving the data of the farmers along with the cheque numbers for
obtaining the proper acknowledgement.
The portal should have the facility of updating the daily cheque disbursements,
Revenue Village-wise and AEO cluster-wise and the dash board is to be provided
depicting the daily cheque disbursement and amount disbursed.
User IDs, accounts have to be created at all levels right from CMO/Hon’ble
Minister for Agrl/CS/Prl Sec (Finance)/Prl Sec (A&C)/Commissioner of Agriculture
/District Collector/DAO/ADA/MAO/AEO in the Rythu Bandhu Portal for viewing
the dashboard and also updating by the implementing officers.
GUIDELINES FOR INVESTMENT SUPPORT
IMPLEMENTATION:
The Commissioner of Agriculture has to obtain the required data in a secured
format (basic details being not amenable for editing) from Chief Commissioner
of Land Administration and work out the beneficiary-wise amounts with the
help of NIC through development of separate MIS portal.
The SLBC will furnish the format and other technical details for transmitting the
data in a secured format.
The Commissioner of Agriculture, with the help of NIC, will furnish the data in
the prescribed secured format to the banks by extracting the information from
the LRUP data base.
The Banks should ensure security of the data provided to them.
It shall be responsibility of the Banks to ensure that the payee details and amounts
printed on Cheques as per the data made available to them.
The Banks shall provide MIS as required by the Commissioner & Director of
Agriculture.
The Banks shall furnish the data, farmer-wise, along with Cheque numbers at the
time of handing over cheques to the C&DA.
The SLBC has proposed (6) Nationalized banks and (2) Regional Rural Banks
(RRBs) for implementing the scheme.
The cost of printing of cheques and service charges payable to Banks shall be
decided by the SLBC.