Hyderabad: 7,411 cr spent under Rythu Bandhu

Hyderabad: The State government has kept its promise of giving financial assistance to farmers under the flagship 'Rythu Bandhu'. It has offered Rs 7,411 crore so far under the scheme. With this about 62 lakh farmers got benefits from the scheme. The government has offered a total of Rs 7411.52 crore to farmers. As many as 62.99 lakh farmers got benefits according to reports. With this a total of 1,48,23,000 acres in the State have been covered under the scheme, through the government.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has announced to help farmers to get the Rythu Bandhu amounts to push for agriculture production. As promised, the amounts were given to farmers for the last 10 days and they got the benefits. The government has released about Rs.7,500 crore towards the "Rythu Bandhu" scheme to cover about 66 lakh farmers. The process of giving financial assistance has reached the final stage. So far it has reached most of them. Nalgonda district got the highest amount of Rs 601.74 crore benefitting 469,696 farmers. Medchal-Malkajgiri district got the lowest amount at Rs33.65 crore benefitting only 33,452 farmers.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy has demanded the Centre to announce a national agriculture policy for farmers' welfare. "The Centre should link the employment guarantee scheme with the agriculture sector to help farmers", he said. Reddy accused the Centre of adopting lopsided policies against farmers facing problems of MSP. Based on crops, the State governments have to give MSP to produce. The Centre should ease norms and procure paddy and other grains, he said.