Anantapur: Farmers fume over removal of Rythu Bharosa benefits

Puttaparthi-Anantapur: Thousands of farmers in the twin districts of Puttaparthi and Anantapur are complaining of being left out of 'Rythu Bharosa' scheme. Some are accidently being ignored while others are deliberately being left out due to political and technical reasons. In the filtration process of weeding out bogus beneficiaries, some genuine farmers are becoming a casualty to the weeding-out process but this is brewing discontentment among some farmers leading to anti-incumbency situation. Social observers feel that it is not about announcing farmers schemes but ensuring their proper implementation. Efforts also should be made to ensure that all schemes should be extended to the stakeholders on a saturation mode. Instead of implementing on a saturation mode, existing beneficiaries are being filtered and on an average about 5-10 per cent of beneficiaries are being weeded out on multiple grounds. In Puttaparthi constituency alone some 5,000 beneficiaries alone are said to be left out of the scheme. The farmers had to run from pillar to post for resumption of Rythu Bharosa amounts. Every farmer is getting Rs 13,500 from the Central and state governments. In the first phase they got Rs 7,500, 2nd phase Rs 4000 and before Sankranti Rs 2,000. There are 5,40,896 farmers families in the two districts who are covered under Rythu Bharosa scheme. Under the Rythu Bharosa scheme Rs 5,500 by the state government and Rs 2,000 under the PM Kisan scheme were sanctioned.

Varalakshmi, a woman farmer from Puttaparthi, says that she has 3 acres of crop land. She received PM Kisan incentive of Rs 2,000. But she complained that the Rythu Bharosa incentive of Rs 5,500 was not paid to her. She bemoaned that it is difficult to carry on agriculture unless the government supported them. Ramakrishna Reddy of Kalyandurgam says that he had been running from pillar to post for coverage under Rythu Bharosa but to no avail. Joint Director of Agriculture Chandra Naik told The Hans India that it is the objective of government to ensure that none is left out on the welfare front. Every effort is being made to include those left out of the scheme. He said some of those excluded from the scheme include those coming under tax dragnet, employees and students who were covered under RBS illegally.